“Now haste, Bernardo, haste! for there, in very truth, is he,
The father, whom thy faithful heart hath yearned[614] so long to see.”
4. His dark eye flashed, his proud breast heaved, his cheeks’ hue came and went;
He reached that gray-haired chieftain’s side, and, there dismounting, bent;
A lowly knee to earth he bent, his father’s hand he took—
What was there in its touch that all his fiery spirit shook?
5. That hand was cold! a frozen thing!—it dropped from his like lead:
He looked up to the face above—the face was of the dead!
A plume waved o’er the noble brow—the brow was fixed and white!
He met, at length, his father’s eyes—but in them was no sight!