The tents drop down, the horde renews its march.
Dreary, and solitary as a churchyard;
The meadow and down-trodden seed-plot lie,
And the year's harvest is gone utterly.

MAX.
Oh, let the emperor make peace, my father!
Most gladly would I give the blood-stained laurel
For the first violet [5] of the leafless spring,
Plucked in those quiet fields where I have journeyed.

OCTAVIO.
What ails thee? What so moves thee all at once?

MAX.
Peace have I ne'er beheld? I have beheld it.
From thence am I come hither: oh, that sight,
It glimmers still before me, like some landscape
Left in the distance,--some delicious landscape!
My road conducted me through countries where
The war has not yet reached. Life, life, my father--
My venerable father, life has charms
Which we have never experienced. We have been
But voyaging along its barren coasts,
Like some poor ever-roaming horde of pirates,
That, crowded in the rank and narrow ship,
House on the wild sea with wild usages,
Nor know aught of the mainland, but the bays
Where safeliest they may venture a thieves' landing.
Whate'er in the inland dales the land conceals