_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 vassals? _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. _Wer._ 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 decayed; And worthy by its birth to match with ours. _Jos._ Your father did not think so, though 'twas noble; But had my birth been all my claim to match 130 With thee, I should have deemed it what it is. _Wer._ And what is that in thine eyes? _Jos._ All which it Has done in our behalf,--nothing. _Wer._ How,--nothing? _Jos._ 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 mightst have earned thy bread, as thousands earn it; Or, if that seem too humble, tried by commerce, 140 Or other civic means, to amend thy fortunes. _Wer._ (_ironically_). And been an Hanseatic burgher? Excellent! _Jos._ Whate'er thou mightest 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! _Wer._ My better angel! Such I have ever found thee; This rashness, or this weakness of my temper, 150 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, Chastened, 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 barred me from my father's house, The last sole scion of a thousand sires (For I was then the last), it hurt me less 160 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,[161] and Twined like the Gorgon's round me. [_A loud knocking is heard_.