Page:The poems of Emma Lazarus volume 1.djvu/344

330 I here renounce my fatherhood. No child Will I acknowledge mine. Thou art a wife; Thy duty is thy husband s. When Antonio Returns from Seville, tell him that his father Is long since dead. Henceforward I will own No kin, no home, no tie. I will away, To-morrow morn, and live an anchorite. One thing ye cannot rob me of my work. My name shall still outsoar these low, mirk vapors— Not the Ribera, stained with sin and shame, As she hath left it, but the Spagnoletto. My glory is mine own. I have done with it, But I bequeath it to my country. Now I will make friends with beasts they 11 prove less savage Than she that was my daughter. I have spoken For the last time that word. Thee I curse not ; Thou hast not set thy heel upon my heart ; But yet I will not bless thee. Go. Good-night.

What ! will you spurn me thus? Nay, I will bide, And be to thee all that she should have been, Soothe thy declining years, and heal the wound Of this sharp sorrow. Thou shalt bless me still, Father—