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Demetrius by Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
page 28 of 71 (39%)
Which links mankind with sympathies of love.

KING.
But now you enter on a realm where all--
Use, custom, morals--are untried and strange,
In Poland here reigns freedom absolute;
The king himself, although in pomp supreme,
Must ofttime be the serf of his noblesse;
But there the father's sacred power prevails,
And in the subject finds a passive slave.

DEMETRIUS.
That glorious freedom which surrounds me here
I will transplant into my native land,
And turn these bond-serfs into glad-souled men;
Not o'er the souls of slaves will I bear rule.

KING.
Do naught in haste; but by the time be led!
Prince, ere we part, three lessons take from me,
And truly follow them when thou art king.
It is a king that gives them, old and tried,
And they may prove of profit to thy youth.

DEMETRIUS.
Oh, share thy wisdom with me! Thou hast won
The reverence of a free and mighty people;
What must I do to earn so fair a prize?

KING.
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