Читать книгу The Greatest German Classics (Vol. 1-14) - Various - Страница 1741

So faithfully preserves thou each small favor,

And hast no memory for contumelies?

Must I remind thee, how at Regensburg

This man repaid thy faithful services?

All ranks and all conditions in the empire

Thou hadst wronged, to make him great—hadst loaded on thee,

On thee, the hate, the curse of the whole world. No friend existed for thee in all Germany, And why? because thou hadst existed only For the Emperor. To the Emperor alone Clung Friedland in that storm which gather'd round him At Regensburg in the Diet—and he dropp'd thee! He let thee fall! he let thee fall a victim To the Bavarian, to that insolent! Deposed, stript bare of all thy dignity And power, amid the taunting of thy foes, Thou wert let drop into obscurity.— Say not the restoration of thy honor Has made atonement for that first injustice. No honest good-will was it that replaced thee; The law of hard necessity replaced thee, Which they had fain opposed, but that they could not.