Wallenstein's Camp

True – you form part of the general mass.

FIRST YAGER

And you, I suppose, are a separate class!
The difference lies in the coats we wear,
And I have no wish to change with you there.

SERGEANT

Sir Yager, I can't but with pity melt,
When I think how much among boors you've dwelt.
The clever knack and the proper tone,
Are caught by the general's side alone.

FIRST YAGER

Then the lesson is wofully thrown away, —
How he hawks and spits, indeed, I may say
You've copied and caught in the cleverest way;
But his spirit, his genius – oh, these I ween,
On your guard parade are but seldom seen.

SECOND YAGER

Why, zounds! ask for us wherever you will,
Friedland's wild hunt is our title still!
Never shaming the name, all undaunted we go
Alike through the field of a friend, or a foe;
Through the rising stalk, or the yellow corn,
Well know they the blast of Holk's Yager horn.
In the flash of an eye, we are far or near,
Swift as the deluge, or there or here —
As at midnight dark, when the flames outbreak
In the silent dwelling where none awake;
Vain is the hope in weapons or flight,
Nor order nor discipline thwart its might.
Then struggles the maid in our sinewy arms,
But war hath no pity, and scorns alarms.
Go, ask – I speak not with boastful tongue —
In Bareuth, Westphalia, Voigtland, where'er
Our troops have traversed – go, ask them there —
Children and children's children long,
When hundreds and hundreds of years are o'er,
Of Holk will tell and his Yager corps.

SERGEANT

Why, hark! Must a soldier then be made
By driving this riotous, roaring trade!
'Tis drilling that makes him, skill and sense —
Perception – thought – intelligence.

FIRST YAGER

'Tis liberty makes him! Here's a fuss!
That I should such twaddle as this discuss.
Was it for this that I left the school?
That the scribbling desk, and the slavish rule,
And the narrow walls, that our spirits cramp,
Should be met with again in the midst of the camp?
No! Idle and heedless, I'll take my way,
Hunting for novelty every day;
Trust to the moment with dauntless mind,
And give not a glance or before or behind.
For this to the emperor I sold my hide,
That no other care I might have to bide.
Through the foe's fierce firing bid me ride,
Through fathomless Rhine, in his roaring flow,
Where ev'ry third man to the devil may go,
At no bar will you find me boggling there;
But, farther than this, 'tis my special prayer,
That I may not be bothered with aught like care.

SERGEANT

If this be your wish, you needn't lack it,
'Tis granted to all with the soldier's jacket.

FIRST YAGER

What a fuss and a bother, forsooth, was made
By that man-tormentor, Gustavus, the Swede,
Whose camp was a church, where prayers were said
At morning reveille and evening tattoo;
And, whenever it chanced that we frisky grew,
A sermon himself from the saddle he'd read.

SERGEANT

Ay, that was a man with the fear of God.

FIRST YAGER

Girls he detested; and what's rather odd,
If caught with a wench you in wedlock were tacked, —
I could stand it no longer, so off I packed.

SERGEANT