WERNER;

OR,

THE INHERITANCE.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-The Hall of a decayed Palace near a small Town on the Northern Frontier of Silesia-the Night tempestuous.

WERNER and JOSEPHINE, his Wife.

Jos. My love, be calmer!

Wer.

Jos.

I am calm.

To me

Yes, but not to thyself: thy pace is hurried,
And no one walks a chamber like to ours,
With steps like thine, when his heart is at rest.
Were it a garden, I should deem thee happy,
And stepping with the bee from flower to flower;
But here!

Wer. "Tis chill; the tapestry lets through
The wind to which it waves: my blood is frozen.
Jos. Ah, no!

Wer. (smiling). Why! wouldst thou have it so?
Jos.

Have it a healthful current.

Wer.

Let it flow

Until 'tis spilt or checked-how soon, I care not.
Jos. And am I nothing in thy heart?

I would

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Wer.

All-all.

Jos. Then canst thou wish for that which must break

mine?

Wer. (approaching her slowly). But for thee I had been

-no matter what

But much of good and evil; what I am,

Thou knowest; what I might or should have been,
Thou knowest not: but still I love thee, nor

Shall aught divide us.

[WERNER walks on abruptly, and then approaches JOSEPHINE.

The storm of the night,

Perhaps affects me; I'm a thing of feelings,

And have of late been sickly, as, alas!

Thou know'st by sufferings more than mine, my Love!

In watching me.

Jos.

To see thee happy

Wer.

To see thee well is much

Where hast thou seen such?

But think

Let me be wretched with the rest!

Jos.

How many in this hour of tempest shiver
Beneath the biting wind and heavy rain,

Whose every drop bows them down nearer earth,
Which hath no chamber for them save beneath

Her surface.

Wer.

And that's not the worst: who cares
For chambers? rest is all. The wretches whom
Thou namest-aye, the wind howls round them, and
The dull and dropping rain saps in their bones
The creeping marrow. I have been a soldier,

A hunter, and a traveller, and am

A beggar, and should know the thing thou talk'st of. Jos. And art thou not now sheltered from them all? Wer. Yes. And from these alone.

Jos.

Jos.

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30

And that is something.

Wer. True-to a peasant.1

Should the nobly born

40

Be thankless for that refuge which their habits

Of early delicacy render more

i. Yea-to a peasant.-[MS, erased.]

Needful than to the peasant, when the ebb

Of fortune leaves them on the shoals of life?

Wer. It is not that, thou know'st it is not: we
Have borne all this, I'll not say patiently,
Except in thee-but we have borne it.
Jos.

Well?

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Wer. Something beyond our outward sufferings (though These were enough to gnaw into our souls) Hath stung me oft, and, more than ever, now. When, but for this untoward sickness, which Seized me upon this desolate frontier, and Hath wasted, not alone my strength, but means, And leaves us-no! this is beyond me !—but For this I had been happy-thou been happyThe splendour of my rank sustained-my name— My father's name-been still upheld; and, more Than those

Jos. (abruptly). My son-our son—our Ulric,
Been clasped again in these long-empty arms,
And all a mother's hunger satisfied.

Twelve years! he was but eight then :-beautiful
He was, and beautiful he must be now,

My Ulric! my adored!

I have been full oft

Wer.
The chase of Fortune; now she hath o'ertaken
My spirit where it cannot turn at bay,—

Sick, poor, and lonely.

Jos.

Lonely! my dear husband?

Wer. Or worse-involving all I love, in this Far worse than solitude. Alone, I had died,

And all been over in a nameless grave.

бо

Jos. And I had not outlived thee; but pray take Comfort ! We have struggled long; and they who strive

With Fortune win or weary her at last,

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So that they find the goal or cease to feel

Further. Take comfort,—we shall find our boy.
Wer. We were in sight of him, of every thing
Which could bring compensation for past sorrow--
And to be baffled thus !

Jos.

We are not baffled.

Wer. Are we not penniless?

Jos.

We ne'er were wealthy.

Wer. But I was born to wealth, and rank, and power;
Enjoyed them, loved them, and, alas! abused them,
And forfeited them by my father's wrath,

In my o'er-fervent youth: but for the abuse
Long-sufferings have atoned. My father's death
Left the path open, yet not without snares.
This cold and creeping kinsman, who so long
Kept his eye on me, as the snake upon

The fluttering bird, hath ere this time outstept me,
Become the master of my rights, and lord

Of that which lifts him up to princes in

Dominion and domain.

Jos.

Who knows? cur son

May have returned back to his grandsire, and
Even now uphold thy rights for thee?

80

Wer.
'Tis hopeless. 90
Since his strange disappearance from my father's,
Entailing, as it were, my sins upon

Himself, no tidings have revealed his course.
I parted with him to his grandsire, on
The promise that his anger would stop short
Of the third generation; but Heaven seems
To claim her stern prerogative, and visit
Upon my boy his father's faults and follies.
Jos. I must hope better still, at least we have yet
Baffled the long pursuit of Stralenheim.

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Wer. We should have done, but for this fatal sickness;—

More fatal than a mortal malady,

Because it takes not life, but life's sole solace :

Even now I feel my spirit girt about

By the snares of this avaricious fiend :—

How do I know he hath not tracked us here?

Jos. He does not know thy person; and his spies, Who so long watched thee, have been left at Hamburgh. Our unexpected journey, and this change

Of name, leaves all discovery far behind:

None hold us here for aught save what we seem.

ΙΙΟ

Wer. Save what we seem! save what we are sick

beggars,

Even to our very hopes.-Ha! ha!

Jos.

That bitter laugh!

Wer.

Alas!

Who would read in this form
The high soul of the son of a long line?
Who, in this garb, the heir of princely lands?
Who, in this sunken, sickly eye, the pride
Of rank and ancestry? In this worn cheek
And famine-hollowed brow, the Lord of halls
Which daily feast a thousand vassals?

You

Jos.
Pondered not thus upon these worldly things,
My Werner! when you deigned to choose for bride
The foreign daughter of a wandering exile.

Wer. An exile's daughter with an outcast son,

Were a fit marriage: but I still had hopes

To lift thee to the state we both were born for.
Your father's house was noble, though decayed;
And worthy by its birth to match with ours.

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130

Jos. Your father did not think so, though 'twas noble; But had my birth been all my claim to match With thee, I should have deemed it what it is. Wer. And what is that in thine eyes? Jos.

Has done in our behalf,-nothing.

Wer.

All which it

How,-nothing?

Jos. Or worse; for it has been a canker in
Thy heart from the beginning: but for this,
We had not felt our poverty but as
Millions of myriads feel it-cheerfully;

But for these phantoms of thy feudal fathers,

Thou mightst have earned thy bread, as thousands

earn it;

Or, if that seem too humble, tried by commerce,

Or other civic means, to amend thy fortunes.

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Wer. (ironically). And been an Hanseatic burgher? Excellent!

Jos. Whate'er thou mightest have been, to me thou art What no state high or low can ever change,

My heart's first choice;-which chose thee, knowing neither