Page:Wallenstein, a drama in 2 parts - Schiller (tr. Coleridge) (1800).djvu/375

And like a mother goddess with strong arm,
Carried me swiftly up the steps of life.
Nothing is common in my destiny,
Nor in the furrows of my hand. Who dares
Interpret then my life for me as 'twere
One of the undistinguishable many?
True in this present moment I appear
Fallen low indeed; but I shall rise again.
The high flood will soon follow on this ebb;
The fountain of my fortune, which now stops
Repress'd and bound by some malicious star,
Will soon in joy play forth from all its pipes.

GORDON.
And yet remember I the good old proverb,
"Let the night come before we praise the day."
I would be slow from long-continued fortune
To gather hope: for hope is the companion
Given to the unfortunate by pitying Heaven.
Fear hovers round the head of prosperous men:
For still unsteady are the scales of fate.

WALLENSTEIN. (smiling.)
I hear the very Gordon that of old
Was wont to preach to me, now once more preaching;
I know well, that all sublunary things
Are still the vassals of vicissitude.
The unpropitious gods demand their tribute.
This long ago the ancient Pagans knew:
And therefore of their own accord they offer'd
To themselves injuries, so to atone

The