Up from the ground he sprang and gazed; but who could paint that
gaze?
They hushed their very hearts that saw its horror and amaze:
They might have chained him, as before that stony form he stood;
For the power was stricken from his arm, and from his lip the blood.
"Father!" at length, he murmured low, and wept like childhood then:
Talk not of grief till thou hast seen the tears of warlike men!
He thought on all his glorious hopes, and all his young renown;
He flung his falchion from his side, and in the dust sat down.
Then covering with his steel-gloved hands his darkly mournful brow,—
"No more, there is no more," he said, "to lift the sword for now;
My king is false,—my hope betrayed! My father,—O the worth,
The glory, and the loveliness are passed away from earth!
"I thought to stand where banners waved, my sire, beside thee, yet;
I would that there our kindred blood on Spain's free soil had met!
Thou wouldst have known my spirit, then; for thee my fields were won;
And thou hast perished in thy chains, as though thou hadst no son!"
Then, starting from the ground once more, he seized the monarch's
rein,
Amidst the pale and wildered looks of all the courtier train;
And with a fierce, o'ermastering grasp, the rearing war-horse led,
And sternly set them face to face,—the king before the dead:
"Came I not forth, upon thy pledge, my father's hand to kiss?
Be still, and gaze thou on, false king! and tell me what is this?
The voice, the glance, the heart I sought,—give answer, where
are they?
If thou wouldst clear thy perjured soul, send life through this
cold clay;
"Into these glassy eyes put light;—be still! keep down thine ire!
Bid these white lips a blessing speak,—this earth is not my sire:
Give me back him for whom I strove,—for whom my blood was shed.
Thou canst not?—and a king!—his dust be mountains on thy head!"
He loosed the steed,—his slack hand fell; upon the silent face
He cast one long, deep, troubled look, then turned from that sad
place.
His hope was crushed, his after fate untold in martial strain:
His banner led the spears no more amidst the hills of Spain.