[ULRIC is going.

What! remain to be

Sieg. Stop! I command-entreat-implore! Oh, Ulric! Will you then leave me?

Ulr.

Denounced-dragged, it may be, in chains; and all

By your inherent weakness, half-humanity,
Selfish remorse, and temporizing pity,

No, Count,

That sacrifices your whole race to save
A wretch to profit by our ruin!
Henceforth you have no son !

Sieg.

I never had one;

And would you ne'er had borne the useless name!
Where will you go? I would not send you forth
Without protection.

Ulr.

Leave that unto me.

I am not alone; nor merely the vain heir

Of your domains; a thousand, aye, ten thousand
Swords, hearts, and hands are mine.

Sieg.

The foresters!

40

With whom the Hungarian found you first at Frankfort !

Ulr. Yes-men-who are worthy of the name! Go

tell

Your Senators that they look well to Prague;
Their Feast of Peace was early for the times;

There are more spirits abroad than have been laid
With Wallenstein !

50

Sieg. No, no; I have no children: never more Call me by that worst name of parent.

Jos.

Means my good Lord?

Sieg.

To a demon!

What

That you have given birth

Ida (taking ULRIC's hand). Who shall dare say this of

Ulric ?

Sieg. Ida, beware! there's blood upon that hand.

Ida (stooping to kiss it). I'd kiss it off, though it were

Sieg.

mine.

It is so !

Them both!--My Josephine! we are now alone!
Would we had ever been so!-All is over

For me!-Now open wide, my sire, thy grave;
Thy curse hath dug it deeper for thy son
In mine -The race of Siegendorf is past.

The end of the fifth act and the Drama.

B. P. Jy 20, 1822.

WERNER.

Nov. 1815.

[FIRST DRAFT.]

ACT I.

SCENE I. A ruinous chateau on the Silesian frontier of Bohemia.

Josepha. THE storm is at it's height-how the wind howls,

Like an unearthly voice, through these lone chambers!
And the rain patters on the flapping casement

Which quivers in it's frame-the night is starless—
Yet cheerly Werner! still our hearts are warm:

The tempest is without, or should be so

For we are sheltered here where Fortune's clouds
May roll all harmless o'er us as the wrath
Of these wild elements that menace now,
Yet do not reach us.

Werner (without attending, and walking disturbedly, speaking to himself). No-'Tis past-'tis blighted,

The last faint hope to which my withered fortune
Clung with a feeble and a fluttering grasp,

Yet clung convulsively-for twas the last

Is broken with the rest: would that my heart were !
But there is pride, and passion's war within,

Which give my breast vitality to suffer,

As it hath suffered through long years till now.
My father's wrath extends beyond the grave,

II

And haunts me in the shape of Stralenheim !
He revels in my fathers palace—I—
Exiled-disherited-a nameless outcast!

20

[Werner pauses.

My boy, too, where and what is he ?-my father
Might well have limited his curse to me.
If that my heritage had passed to Ulric,
I had not mourned my own less happy lot.
No-No-all's past-all torn away.
Josepha.

Dear Werner,

Oh banish these discomfortable thoughts
That thus contend within you: we are poor,
So we have ever been-but I remember

The time when thy Josepha's smile could turn
Thy heart to hers-despite of every ill.

So let it now-alas! you hear me not.

30

Werner. What said you ?-let it pass-no matter

what

Think me not churlish, Sweet, I am not well.

My brain is hot and busy-long fatigue

And last night's watching have oppressed me much. Josepha. Then get thee to thy couch. I do perceive In thy pale cheek and in thy bloodshot eye

A strange distemperature-nay, as a boon,

I do entreat thee to thy rest.

Werner.

Well-be it so-Good Night!

Josepha.

My rest!

Thy hand is burning;

I will prepare a potion :-peace be with thee

Tomorrow's dawn I trust will find thee healthful;
And, then, our Ulric may perchance-

40

Werner. Our Ulric-thine and mine-our only boyCurse on his father and his father's Sire !

(For, if it is so, I will render back

A curse that Heaven will hear as well as his),
Our Ulric by his father's fault or folly,

And by my father's unrelenting pride,

Is at this hour, perchance, undone. This night
That shelters us may shower it's wrath on him—
A homeless beggar for his parent's sin-

Thy sin and mine-Thy child and mine atones—

50

Our Ulric-Woman!-I'll to no bed to-night-
There is no pillow for my thoughts.

Josepha.

What words,

What fearful words are these! what may they mean? Werner. Look on me-thou hast known me, hitherto,

As an oppressed, but yet a humble creature ;

By birth predestined to the yoke I've borne.
Till now I've borne it patiently, at least,
In bitter silence-but the hour is come,
That should and shall behold me as I was,
And ought again to be--

Josepha.

I know not what
Thy mystery may tend to, but my fate-

My heart-my will-my love are linked with thine,
And I would share thy sorrow: lay it open.

60

Werner. Thou see'st the son of Count-but let it

pass

I forfeited the name in wedding thee:

That fault of many faults a father's pride

Proclaimed the last and worst—and, from that hour,
He disavowed, disherited, debased

A wayward son - tis a long tale—too long-
And I am heartsick of the heavy thought.

70

Josepha. Oh, I could weep-but that were little solace: Yet tell the rest-or, if thou wilt not, say

Yet say why, through long years, from me withheld,
This fearful secret that hath gnawed thy soul?

Werner. Why? had it not been base to call on thee

For patience and for pity-to awake

The thirst of grandeur in thy gentle spirit—

To tell thee what thou shouldst have been-the wife

Of one, in power-birth-wealth, preeminent

Then, sudden quailing in that lofty tone,

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To bid thee soothe thy husband-peasant Werner? Josepha. I would thou wert, indeed, the peasant Werner;

For then thy soul had been of calmer mould,

And suited to thy lot

Werner.

Was it not so?

Beneath a humble name and garb—the which
My youthful riot and a father's frown,

90