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 last his father's eyes—but in
them was no sight!
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 the 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—oh! 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.
Felicia Hemans