And here stern Azo hid his face—

For on his brow the swelling vein

Throbbed as if back upon his brain

The hot blood ebbed and flowed again;

And therefore bowed he for a space,

And passed his shaking hand along

His eye, to veil it from the throng;

While Hugo raised his chainéd hands, 230

And for a brief delay demands

His father's ear: the silent sire

Forbids not what his words require.

"It is not that I dread the death—

For thou hast seen me by thy side

All redly through the battle ride,

And that—not once a useless brand—

Thy slaves have wrested from my hand

Hath shed more blood in cause of thine,

Than e'er can stain the axe of mine:[419] 240

Thou gav'st, and may'st resume my breath,

A gift for which I thank thee not;

Nor are my mother's wrongs forgot,

Her slighted love and ruined name,

Her offspring's heritage of shame;

But she is in the grave, where he,

Her son—thy rival—soon shall be.

Her broken heart—my severed head—

Shall witness for thee from the dead

How trusty and how tender were 250

Thy youthful love—paternal care.

'Tis true that I have done thee wrong—

But wrong for wrong:—this,—deemed thy bride,

The other victim of thy pride,—

Thou know'st for me was destined long;

Thou saw'st, and coveted'st her charms;

And with thy very crime—my birth,—

Thou taunted'st me—as little worth;

A match ignoble for her arms;

Because, forsooth, I could not claim 260

The lawful heirship of thy name,

Nor sit on Este's lineal throne;

Yet, were a few short summers mine,

My name should more than Este's shine

With honours all my own.

I had a sword—and have a breast

That should have won as haught[420] a crest

As ever waved along the line

Of all these sovereign sires of thine.

Not always knightly spurs are worn 270

The brightest by the better born;

And mine have lanced my courser's flank

Before proud chiefs of princely rank,

When charging to the cheering cry

Of 'Este and of Victory!'

I will not plead the cause of crime,

Nor sue thee to redeem from time

A few brief hours or days that must

At length roll o'er my reckless dust;—

Such maddening moments as my past, 280

They could not, and they did not, last;—

Albeit my birth and name be base,

And thy nobility of race

Disdained to deck a thing like me—

Yet in my lineaments they trace

Some features of my father's face,

And in my spirit—all of thee.

From thee this tamelessness of heart—

From thee—nay, wherefore dost thou start?—-

From thee in all their vigour came 290

My arm of strength, my soul of flame—

Thou didst not give me life alone,

But all that made me more thine own.

See what thy guilty love hath done!

Repaid thee with too like a son!

I am no bastard in my soul,

For that, like thine, abhorred control;

And for my breath, that hasty boon

Thou gav'st and wilt resume so soon,

I valued it no more than thou, 300

When rose thy casque above thy brow,

And we, all side by side, have striven,

And o'er the dead our coursers driven:

The past is nothing—and at last

The future can but be the past;[421]

Yet would I that I then had died:

For though thou work'dst my mother's ill,

And made thy own my destined bride,

I feel thou art my father still:

And harsh as sounds thy hard decree, 310

'Tis not unjust, although from thee.

Begot in sin, to die in shame,

My life begun and ends the same:

As erred the sire, so erred the son,

And thou must punish both in one.

My crime seems worst to human view,

But God must judge between us too!"[422]