The works of Lord Byron :: :: University of Virginia Library

—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,

454

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

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.
My rest!
Well—be it so—Good Night!

Josepha.
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—

Werner.
Our Ulric—thine and mine—our only boy—
Curse 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—

455

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.

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.

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,
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,

456

Too justly fixed upon me, had compelled
My bowed down spirit to assume too well—
Since it deceived the world, myself, and thee:
I linked my lot irrevocably with thine—
And I have loved thee deeply—long and dearly—
Even as I love thee still—but these late crosses,
And most of all the last,—have maddened me;
And I am wild and wayward as in youth,
Ere I beheld thee—

Josepha.
Would thou never hadst!
Since I have been a blight upon thy hope,
And marred alike the present and the future.

Werner.
Yet say not so—for all that I have known
Of true and calm content—of love—of peace—
Has been with thee and from thee: wert thou not,
I were a lonely and self-loathing thing.
Ulric has left us! all, save thou, have left me!
Father and son—Fortune—Fame—Power—Ambition—
The ties of being—the high soul of man—
All save the long remorse—the consciousness,
The curse of living on, regretting life
Mispent in miserably gazing upward,
While others soared—Away, I'll think no more.

Josepha.
But Ulric—wherefore didst thou let him leave
His home and us? tis now three weary years.

Werner
(interrupting her quickly).
Since my hard father, half-relenting, sent
The offer of a scanty stipend which
I needs must earn by rendering up my son—
Fool that I was—I thought this quick compliance,
And never more assuming in myself
The haught name of my house would soften him—
And for our child secure the heritage
Forfeit in me forever. Since that hour,
Till the last year, the wretched pittance came—
Then ceased with every tidings of my son
And Sire—till late I heard the last had ceased
To live—and unforgiving died—Oh God!

Josepha.
Was it for this our Ulric left us so?
Thou dids't deceive me then—he went not forth

457

To join the legions of Count Tilly's war?

Werner.
I know not—he had left my father's castle,
Some months before his death—but why?—but why?
Left it as I did ere his birth, perchance,
Like me an outcast. Old age had not made
My father meeker—and my son, Alas!
Too much his Sire resembled—

Josepha.
Yet there's comfort.
Restrain thy wandering Spirit—Ulric cannot
Have left his native land—thou dost not know,
Though it looks strangely, thy Sire and he
In anger parted—Hope is left us still.

Werner.
The best hope that I ever held in youth,
When every pulse was life, each thought a joy,
(Yet not irrationally sanguine, since
My birth bespoke high thoughts,) hath lured and left me.
I will not be a dreamer in mine age—
The hunter of a shadow—let boys hope:
Of Hope I now know nothing but the name—
And that 's a sound which jars upon my heart.
I've wearied thee—Good night—my patient Love!

Josepha.
I must not leave thee thus—my husband—friend—
My heart is rent in twain for thee—I scarce
Dare greet thee as I would, lest that my love
Should seem officious and ill timed:—'tis early—
Yet rest were as a healing balm to thee—
Then once again—Good night!

Voice Without.
What Ho—lights ho!