How changed since last her speaking eye
Glanced gladness round the glittering room,
Where high-born men were proud to wait-
Where Beauty watched to imitate
Her gentle voice-her lovely mien-
And gather from her air and gait
The graces of its Queen :
Then,―had her eye in sorrow wept,
A thousand warriors forth had leapt,
A thousand swords had sheathless shone,
And made her quarrel all their own.1
Now, what is she? and what are they?
Can she command, or these obey?
All silent and unheeding now,
With downcast eyes and knitting brow,
And folded arms, and freezing air,
And lips that scarce their scorn forbear,
Her knights, her dames-her court is there :
And he-the chosen one, whose lance
Had yet been couched before her glance,
Who-were his arm a moment free-
Had died or gained her liberty ;
The minion of his father's bride,-
He, too, is fettered by her side;
Nor sees her swoln and full eye swim
Less for her own despair than him :
Those lids-o'er which the violet vein
1. [Compare the famous eulogy of Marie Antoinette, in Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, in a Letter intended to have been sent to a Gentleman in Paris, London, 1790, pp. 112, 113"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles. Little did I dream
that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult.”]
Wandering, leaves a tender stain,
Shining through the smoothest white
That e'er did softest kiss invite-
Now seemed with hot and livid glow.
To press, not shade, the orbs below,
Which glance so heavily, and fill,
As tear on tear grows gathering still 1. 1
And he for her had also wept,
But for the eyes that on him gazed:
His sorrow, if he felt it, slept;
Stern and erect his brow was raised.
Whate'er the grief his soul avowed,
He would not shrink before the crowd;
But yet he dared not look on her;
Remembrance of the hours that were—
His guilt-his love-his present state—
His father's wrath, all good men's hate—
His earthly, his eternal fate-
And hers,-oh, hers! he dared not throw
One look upon that death-like brow!
Else had his rising heart betrayed
Remorse for all the wreck it made.
I gloried in a wife and son;
That dream this morning passed away;
Ere day declines, I shall have none.
My life must linger on alone;
i. As tear by tear rose gathering still.--[Revise.]
1. [Lines 175-182, which are in Byron's handwriting, were added
Well, let that pass,-there breathes not one
Who would not do as I have done :
Those ties are broken-not by me;
Let that too pass ;-the doom's prepared!
Hugo, the priest awaits on thee,
And then-thy crime's reward!
Away! address thy prayers to Heaven;
Before its evening stars are met,
Learn if thou there canst be forgiven ;
Its mercy may absolve thee yet.
But here, upon the earth beneath,
There is no spot where thou and I
Together for an hour could breathe:
Farewell! I will not see thee die-
But thou, frail thing! shalt view his head-
Away! I cannot speak the rest :
Go! woman of the wanton breast;
Not I, but thou his blood dost shed:
Go! if that sight thou canst outlive,
And joy thee in the life I give."
And here stern Azo hid his face-
For on his brow the swelling vein
Throbbed as if back upon his brain
The hot blood ebbed and flowed again;
And therefore bowed he for a space,
And passed his shaking hand along
His eye, to veil it from the throng;
While Hugo raised his chainéd hands,
And for a brief delay demands
His father's ear: the silent sire
Forbids not what his words require.
"It is not that I dread the death-
For thou hast seen me by thy side
All redly through the battle ride,
And that-not once a useless brand-
Thy slaves have wrested from my hand
Hath shed more blood in cause of thine,
Than e'er can stain the axe of mine: 1
Thou gav'st, and may'st resume my breath,
A gift for which I thank thee not;
Nor are my mother's wrongs forgot,
Her slighted love and ruined name,
Her offspring's heritage of shame;
But she is in the grave, where he,
Her son-thy rival-soon shall be.
Her broken heart-my severed head-
Shall witness for thee from the dead
How trusty and how tender were
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
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
1. [The meaning is plain, but the construction is involved. The contrast is between the blood of foes, which Hugo has shed for Azo, and Hugo's own blood, which Azo is about to shed on the scaffold. But this is one of Byron's incurious infelicities.]
With honours all my own.
I had a sword—and have a breast
That should have won as haught1 a crest
As ever waved along the line
Of all these sovereign sires of thine.
Not always knightly spurs are worn
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,
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
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!
1. Haught-haughty. "Away, haught man, thou art insulting me."-SHAKESPEARE [Richard II., act iv. sc. I, line 254
"No lord of thine, thou haught insulting man."]
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