Page:Sentimental reciter.pdf/13

 They might have chained him, as before

That noble form he stood,

For the power was stricken from his arm,

And from his cheek the blood.

“Father!” at length he murmur'd low,

And wept like children then—

Talk not of grief till thou hast seen

The tears of warlike men—

He thought on all his glorious hopes,

On all his high renown,

Then flung the falchion from his side,

And in the dust sat down;

And 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 betray’d,

My father, oh! the worth,

The glory and the loveliness,

Are past away to earth!”

Up from the ground he sprung once more,

And seized the monarch’s rein:

Amid the pale and wilder’d 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 here on thy pledge,

My father's hand to kiss?

Be still! and gaze thou on, false king,

And tell me what is this;

The look, the voice, the heart I sought—

Give answer, where are they?

If thou would’st clear thy perjured soul,

Put life in this cold clay.

“Into those glossy eyes put light;

Be still, keep down thine ire,

Bid those cold lips a blessing speak,

This earth is not my sire: