Nor I esteem myself born child of thee!

Otherwise, thine is the preëminence

O'er all the world in cowardice of soul:

Who, being the old man thou art, arrived

Where life should end, didst neither will nor dare

Die for thy son, but left the task to her,

The alien woman, whom I well might think

Own, only mother both and father too!

And yet a fair strife had been thine to strive,

—Dying for thy own child; and brief for thee