With honours all my own.
I had a sword—and have a breast
That should have won as haught[1] a crest
As ever waved along the line
Of all these sovereign sires of thine.
Not always knightly spurs are worn270
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 came290
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!
- ↑ Haught—haughty. "Away, haught man, thou art insulting me."—Shakespeare [Richard II., act iv. sc. 1, line 254—
"No lord of thine, thou haught insulting man."]
