My spirit where it cannot turn at bay,
Sick, poor,
and lonely.
Or worse-involving all I love, in this
Far worse than solitude. Alone, I had died,
And all been over in a nameless grave.
JOSEPHINE.
And I had not outlived thee;
take
Comfort! We have struggled long; and they who strive
With fortune win or weary her at last,
So that they find the goal, or cease to feel
Further. Take comfort, -we shall find our boy.
We were in sight of him, of every thing
Which could bring compensation for past sorrow-
And to be baffled thus !
JOSEPHINE.
We are not baffled.
We ne'er were wealthy.
WERNER
But I was born to wealth, and rank, and power;
Enjoy'd 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.
JOSEPHINE.
Who knows? our son May have return'd back to his grandsire, and Even now uphold thy rights for thee?
'T is hopeless, Since his strange disappearance from my father's, Entailing, as it were, my sins upon Himself, no tidings have reveal'd his course. I parted with him to his grandsire, on The promise that his
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.
I must hope better still,—at least we have yet
Baffled the long pursuit of Stralenheim.
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 track'd us here?
He does not know thy person; and his spies,
Who so long watch'd 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.
Save what we seem! save what we are—sick beggars, Even to our very hopes.--Ha! ha!
Alas! That bitter laugh!
WERNER.
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-hollow'd brow, the lord of halls,
Which daily feast a thousand vassals ?
You
Ponder'd not thus upon these worldly things,
My Werner! when you deign'd to choose for bride
The foreign daughter of a wandering exile.
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 decay'd;
And worthy by its birth to match with ours.
Your father did not think so, though 't was noble;
But had my birth been all my claim to match
With thee, I should have deem'd it what it is.
And what is that in thine eyes?
JOSEPHINE.
All which it Has done in our behalf,—nothing.
WERNER.
How,—nothing?
JOSEPHINE. 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 might'st have earn’d thy bread, as thousands earn it;
Or, if that seem too humble, tried by commerce,
Or other civic means, to amend thy fortunes.
WERNER (Ironically.)
And been an Hanseatic burgher? Excellent!
Whate'er thou might'st 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
Thy birth, thy hopes, thy pride; nought, save thy sorrows;
While they last, let me comfort or divide them;
When they end, let mine end with them, or thee!
My better angel! such I have ever found thee;
This rashness, or this weakness of my temper,
Ne'er raised a thought to injure thee or thine.
Thou didst not mar my fortunes : my own nature
In youth was such as to unmake an empire,
Had such been my inheritance; but now,
Chasten d, subdued, out-worn, and taught to know
Myself,—to lose this for our son and thee!
Trust me, when, in my two-and-twentieth spring
My father barr'd me from my father's house,
The last sole scion of a thousand sires,
(For I was then the last) it hurt me less
Than to behold my boy and my boy's mother
Excluded in their innocence from what
My faults deserved-exclusion; although then
My passions were all living serpents, and
Twined like the gorgon's round me.
(A knocking is heard. JOSEPHINE.
Hark!
JOSEPHINE.
Who can it be at this lone hour? we have
Few visitors.
WERNER. And poverty hath
none, Save those who come to make it poorer still. Well, I am prepared. (WERNER puts his hand into his bosom as if to search for some weapon.
JOSEPHINE.
Oh! do not look so. I
Will to the door, it cannot be of import
In this lone spot of wintry desolation
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