The Works of Lord Byron Volume V Part 85

WERNER _and_ JOSEPHINE, _his Wife_.

_Jos._ My love, be calmer!

_Wer._ I am calm.

_Jos._ 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._ I would Have it a healthful current.

_Wer._ Let it flow 10 Until 'tis spilt or checked--how soon, I care not.

_Jos._ And am I nothing in thy heart?

_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! 20 Thou know'st by sufferings more than mine, my Love!

In watching me.

_Jos._ To see thee well is much-- To see thee happy----

_Wer._ Where hast thou seen such?

Let me be wretched with the rest!

_Jos._ But think How many in this hour of tempest s.h.i.+ver 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 30 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._ And that is something.

_Wer._ True--to a peasant.[cn]

_Jos._ Should the n.o.bly born Be thankless for that refuge which their habits Of early delicacy render more 40 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?

_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 50 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 happy-- The 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, 60 My Ulric! my adored!

_Wer._ I have been full oft 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.

_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, 70 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 80 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? our son May have returned back to his grandsire, and Even now uphold thy rights for thee?

_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. 100

_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: 110 None hold us here for aught save what we seem.

_Wer._ Save what we seem! save what we _are_--sick beggars, Even to our very hopes.--Ha! ha!

_Jos._ Alas!

That bitter laugh!

_Wer._ _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 va.s.sals?

_Jos._ You 120 Pondered not thus upon these worldly things, My Werner! when you deigned to choose for bride The foreign daughter of a wandering exile.