THEKLA.
His spirit 'tis that calls me: 'tis the troop
Of his true followers, who offered up
Themselves to avenge his d**h: and they accuse me
Of an ignoble loitering—they would not
Forsake their leader even in his d**h; they died for him,
And shall I live?
For me too was that laurel garland twined
That decks his bier. Life is an empty casket:
I throw it from me. Oh, my only hope;
To die beneath the hoofs of trampling steeds—
That is a lot of heroes upon earth!
[Exit THEKLA. [10]
(The Curtain drops.)
Footnotes
10 The soliloquy of Thekla consists in the original of six-and-twenty
lines twenty of which are in rhymes of irregular recurrence. I
thought it prudent to abridge it. Indeed the whole scene between
Thekla and Lady Neubrunn might, perhaps, have been omitted without
injury to the play.—C.