cable: it extends not, however, beyond my own
walls."--_Canterbury Tales_, 1838, ii. 268; see, too, pp. 269, 270.]

WERNER

Nov. 1815.

[FIRST DRAFT.]

ACT I.

SCENE I.--_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, 10
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,
And haunts me in the shape of Stralenheim!
He revels in my fathers palace--I-- 20
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 30
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