ven,
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]

XIV.

He ceased--and stood with folded arms,
On which the circling fetters sounded;
And not an ear but felt as wounded, 320
Of all the chiefs that there were ranked,
When those dull chains in meeting clanked:
Till Parisina's fatal charms[423]
Again attracted every eye--
Would she thus hear him doomed to die!
She stood, I said, all pale and still,
The living cause of Hugo's ill:
Her eyes unmoved, but full and wide,
Not once had turned to either side--
Nor once did those sweet eyelids close, 330
Or shade the glance o'er which they rose,
But round their orbs of deepest blue
The circling white dilated grew--
And there with glassy gaze she stood
As ice were in her curdled blood;
But every now and then a tear[424]
So large and slowly gathered slid
From the long dark fringe of that fair lid,
It was a thing to see, not hear![425]
And those who saw, it did surprise, 340
Such drops could fall from human eyes.
To speak she thought--the imperfect note
Was choked within her swelling throat,
Yet seemed in that low hollow groan
Her whole heart gushing in the tone.
It ceased--again she thought to speak,
Then burst her voice in one long shriek,
And to the earth she fell like stone
Or statue from its base o'erthrown,
More like a thing that ne'er had life,-- 350
A monument of Azo's wife,--
Than her, that living guilty thing,
Whose every passion was a sting,
Which urged to guilt, but could not bear
That guilt's detection and despair.
But yet she lived--and all too soon
Recovered from