ELECTOR.  For me?  No!  Bah!  For me! 
  My girl, know you no higher law than me! 
  Have you no inkling of a sanctuary
  That in the camp men call the fatherland?

NATALIE.  My liege!  Why fret your soul?  Because of such
  Upstirring of your grace, this fatherland
  Will not this moment crash to rack and ruin! 
  The camp has been your school.  And, look, what there
  You term unlawfulness, this act, this free
  Suppression of the verdict of the court,
  Appears to me the very soul of law. 
  The laws of war, I am aware, must rule;
  The heart, however, has its charter, too. 
  The fatherland your hands upbuilt for us,
  My noble uncle, is a fortress strong,
  And other greater storms indeed will bear
  Than this unnecessary victory. 
  Majestically through the years to be
  It shall uprise, beneath your line expand,
  Grow beautiful with towers, luxuriant,
  A fairy country, the felicity
  Of those who love it, and the dread of foes. 
  It does not need the cold cementing seal
  Of a friend’s life-blood to outlast the calm
  And glorious autumn of my uncle’s days!

ELECTOR.  And cousin Homburg thinks this?

NATALIE.  Cousin Homburg?

ELECTOR.  Does he believe it matters not at all
  If license rule the fatherland, or law?

NATALIE.  This poor dear boy!

ELECTOR.  Well, now?

NATALIE.  Oh, uncle dear,
  To that I have no answer save my tears!

ELECTOR (in surprise). 
  Why that, my little girl?  What has befallen?

NATALIE (falteringly). 
  He thinks of nothing now but one thing:  rescue! 
  The barrels at the marksmen’s shoulders peer
  So ghastly, that, giddy and amazed,
  Desire is mute, save one desire:  To live. 
  The whole great nation of the Mark might sink
  To wrack mid flare and thunderbolt; and he
  Stand by nor even ask:  What comes to pass?—­
  Oh, what a hero’s heart have you brought low?

[She turns away, sobbing.]

ELECTOR (utterly amazed). 
  No, dearest Natalie!  No, no, indeed! 
  Impossible!—­He pleads for clemency?

NATALIE.  If you had only, only not condemned him!

ELECTOR.  Come, tell me, come!  He pleads for clemency? 
  What has befallen, child?  Why do you sob? 
  You met?  Come, tell me all.  You spoke with him?

NATALIE (pressed against his breast). 
  In my aunt’s chambers but a moment since,
  Whither in mantle, lo, and plumed hat
  Stealthily through the screening dusk he came—­
  Furtive, perturbed, abashed, unworthy all,
  A miserable, pitiable sight. 
  I never guessed a man could sink so low
  Whom history applauded as her hero. 
  For look—­I am a woman and I shrink
  From the mere worm that draws too near my foot;
  But so undone, so void of all control,
  So unheroic quite, though lion-like
  Death fiercely came, he should not find me thus! 
  Oh, what is human greatness, human fame!