Breath to let loose the word that fain would break,
And cannot, even for passion,--if we set
An hour against the length of life: and yet
Less in account of life should be those hours -
Should be? should be not, live not, be not known,
Not thought of, not remembered even as ours, -
Whereon the flesh or fancy bears alone
Rule that the soul repudiates for its own,
Rejects and mocks and mourns for, and reclaims
Its nature, none the ignobler for the shames
That were but shadows on it--shed but shade
And perished. If thy brother and king, my sire -

CAMBER.

No king of mine is he--we are equal, weighed
Aright in state, though here his throne stand higher.

MADAN.

So be it. I say, if even some earth-born fire
Have ever lured the loftiest head that earth
Sees royal, toward a charm of baser birth
And force less godlike than the sacred spell
That links with him my mother, what were this
To her or me?

CAMBER.

To her no more than hell