We will not speak of that until
We can repeat the same with like success;
And when you have join'd, give Rosenberg this letter.
[Gives a letter.
Add further, that I have sent this slight addition
To our force with you and Wolffe, as herald of
My coming, though I could but spare them ill
At this time, as my father loves to keep
Full numbers of retainers round the castle,
Until this marriage, and its feasts and fooleries,
Are rung out with its peal of nuptial nonsense.
I thought you loved the lady Ida?
SIEGENDORF (to IDA).
True, dear child,
Though somewhat frankly said for a fair damsel.—
But, Ulric, recollect too our position,
So lately reinstated in our honours.
Believe me,
't would be mark'd in any house,
But most in ours, that ONE should be found wanting
At such a time and place. Besides, the Heaven
Which gave us back our own, in the same moment
It spread its peace o'er all, hath double claims
On us for thanksgiving; first, for our country,
And next, that we are here to share its blessings.
ULRIC (aside).
Devout, too! Well, sir, I obey at once.
[Then aloud to a servant. Ludwig, dismiss the train without!
You yield at once to him what I for hours Might supplicate in vain.
SIEGENDORF (smiling). You are not jealous Of me, I trust, my pretty rebel! who Would sanction disobedience against all
Except thyself? But fear not, thou shalt rule him Hereafter with a fonder sway and firmer.
But I should like to govern now.
Your harp, which by the way awaits
you with
The countess in her chamber. She complains
That you are a sad truant to your music:
SIEGENDORF.
I talk not of his birth,
But of his bearing. Men speak lightly of him.
So they will do of most men. Even the monarch Is not fenced from his chamberlain's slander, or The sneer of the last courtier whom he has made Great and ungrateful.
SIEGENDORF.
If I must be plain,
The world speaks more than lightly of this Rodolph; Then good morrow, my kind kinsmen! They say he is leagued with the « black bands » who still Ulric, you'll come and hear me? Ravage the frontier.
As you feel, nothing, but all life for her.
Sives young-all-beautiful-adores you-is
Endow d with qualities to give happiness,
Such as rounds common life into a dream
Of something which your pocts cannot paint,
And if it were not wisdom to love virtue
For which philosophy might barter wisdom;
And giving so much happiness, deserves
A little in return. I would not have her
Break her heart for a man who has none to break,
Or wither on her stalk like some pale rose
Deserted by the bird she thought a nightingale,
According to the Orient tale. She is--
Count, 't is a marriage of your making,
So be it of your wooing; but to please you
I will now pay my duty to my mother,
With whom, you know, the lady Ida is-
What would have?
you
You have forbid my stirring
For manly sports beyond the castle walls,
And I obey; you bid me turn a chamberer,
To pick up gloves, and faus, and knitting-needles,
And list to songs and tunes, and watch for smiles,
And smile at pretty prattle, and look into
eyes of feminie, as though they were The stars receding early to our wish
Upon the dawn of a world-winning battleWhat can a son or man do more?
Too much of duty and too little love!
He pays me in the coin he owes me not:
For such hath been my wayward fate, I could not
Fulfil a parent's duties by his side
Till now; but love he owes me, for my thoughts
Ne'er left him, nor my eyes long'd without tears
To see my child again, and now I have found him!
But how! obedient, but with coldness; duteous
In my sight, but with carelessness; mysterious,
Abstracted-distant-much given to long absence,
And where-uone know-in league with the most riotous
Of our young nobles; though, to do him justice,
He never stoops down to their vulgar pleasures;
Yet there's some tie between them which I cannot
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