person in exchange
for his castle. Bernardo accepted the offer, gave up his castle, and
rode forth with the king to meet his father.)

The warrior bowed his crested head, and
tamed his heart of fire,
And sued the haughty king to free his
long-imprisoned sire:
"I bring thee here my fortress keys, I
bring my captive train,
I pledge thee faith, my liege, my lord!--oh,
break my father's chain!"

"Rise, rise! even now thy father comes
a ransomed man this day:
Mount thy good horse, and thou and I will
meet him on his way."
Then lightly rose that loyal son, and
bounded on his steed,
And urged, as if with lance in rest, the
charger's foamy speed.

And lo! from far, as on they pressed, there
came a glittering band,
With one that midst them stately rode, as
a leader in the land;
"Now haste, Bernardo, haste! for there,
in very truth, is he,
The father whom thy faithful heart hath
yearned so long to see."

His dark eye flashed, his proud breast
heaved, his cheek's blood 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?

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