Where is it not inscribed? Why, I have read
Each letter of that name amid the stars.
Neighbours, dear friends, ye dream, ye dream: awake!
Gaze not on me with sadly wondering eyes,
I only bid you to your actual wish.
My voice is but the voice of your own hearts.
Who will this wretched night lay down his head
Upon his restless bed, ere he has knelt
In earnest prayer to heaven for Egmont's sake.
Now, with God's blessing, ask it of yourselves.
Mine be your watch word—Egmont! freedom! death!
3d Citizen.
The evil that would bring upon our heads!
Clara.
Stay yet a little while. Fly not the name
Your shouts so lately bore to yonder heaven.
But late he came from Ghent; then stood ye all
Joyful, and lined the streets through which he rode.
Then did the artisan fling down his work
That he might gaze; the sorrowful looked forth,
And gladdened while they looked, as if his face
Shed sunshine round. Ye held your children up
That they might know the hero of your love.
'Tis our brave Egmont. Ye must look to him
For better days than those your fathers knew.
Let not your children ask, where is he now—
Our great deliverer? Where the better days
That built their hope on him? How will ye say,
We did betray him, cowards that we were!
1st Citizen.
Let her not talk, it only adds to ill.
Brackenberg.
