_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 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