Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 3.djvu/556

518 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,

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;

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,

'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!"

XIV.

He ceased—and stood with folded arms,

On which the circling fetters sounded;

And not an ear but felt as wounded,

Of all the chiefs that there were ranked,

When those dull chains in meeting clanked:

Till Parisina's fatal charms