Page:Songs of the Affections.pdf/91

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BERNARDO DEL CAPRIO.
83


"Now haste, Bernardo, haste! for there, in very truth, is he,
The father whom thy faithful heart hath yearn'd so long to see."

His dark eye flash'd, his proud breast heaved, his cheek's blood came and went;
He reach'd that grey-hair'd 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?

That hand was cold—a frozen thing—it dropp'd from his like lead,—
He look'd up to the face above—the face was of the dead!