_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 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 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 nobly 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!