-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 stri