English
Translated by Ellen Frothingham
But her lover replied with a noble and manly emotion:
"So much the firmer then, amid these universal convulsions,
Be, Dorothea, our union! We two will hold fast and continue,
Firmly maintaining ourselves, and the right to our ample possessions.
For that man, who, when times are uncertain, is faltering in spirit,
Only increases the evil, and further and further transmits it;
While he refashions the world, who keeps himself steadfastly minded.
Poorly becomes it the German to give to these fearful excitements
Aught of continuance, or to be this way and that way inclining.