But alms he refuses to give.
He seizes her hand, with a smile in his eye:
'Thou art mine!' he exclaims, 'while I live!' 'When thou know'st,' cries the old man, 'the treasure that's there,
A princess thou'lt make her of right;
Betroth'd be she now, on this spot green and fair—'"
The children they hear with delight.
"So she's bless'd by the priest on the hallowed place,
And she goes with a smiling but sorrowful face,
From her father she fain would not part.
The old man still wanders with ne'er-changing pace,
He covers with joy his sad heart.
So I think of my daughter, as years pass away,
And my grandchildren far from my sight;
I bless them by night, and I bless them by day"—
The children they hear with delight.
He blesses the children: a knocking they hear,
The father it is! They spring forward in fear,