No More Learning

_Ulr. _ I mean it--and indeed it could not well
Have fallen out at a time more opposite
To all my plans.

_Rod. _ It will be difficult 100
To excuse your absence to the Count your father.

_Ulr. _ Yes, but the unsettled state of our domain
In high Silesia will permit and cover
My journey. In the mean time, when we are
Engaged in the chase, draw off the eighty men
Whom Wolffe leads--keep the forests on your route:
You know it well?

_Rod. _ As well as on that night
When we----

_Ulr. _ We will not speak of that until
We can repeat the same with like success:
And when you have joined, give Rosenberg this letter. 110
[_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.

_Rod. _ I thought you loved the lady Ida?

_Ulr.
_ Why,
I do so--but it follows not from that
I would bind in my youth and glorious years, 120
So brief and burning, with a lady's zone,
Although 'twere that of Venus:--but I love her,
As woman should be loved--fairly and solely.

_Rod. _ And constantly?

_Ulr. _ I think so; for I love
Nought else. --But I have not the time to pause
Upon these gewgaws of the heart. Great things
We have to do ere long. Speed! speed! good Rodolph!

_Rod. _ On my return, however, I shall find
The Baroness Ida lost in Countess Siegendorf?

_Ulr. _ Perhaps: my father wishes it, and, sooth, 130
'Tis no bad policy: this union with
The last bud of the rival branch at once
Unites the future and destroys the past.

_Rod. _ Adieu.