Two brothers on a pilgrim road finally see the bird they have been hoping for: a lammergeier, a huge vulture, hanging in the sky above them. The speaker's brother has been chanting its name for days, so its arrival feels almost summoned, and the poem opens with a burst of delight and wonder.
The setting adds a layer of legend. They stand by a rock said to have been split by Roland's sword, and the speaker expects a vulture to look like a scavenger from that bloody story. Instead the bird has a feathered head and a wisp of beard, and it seems nothing like the "tonsured carrion-eaters" he imagined. The mood shifts to something gentler, even a little comic, when they regret that its talons are empty. They had hoped to see it drop bones and crack them open for the marrow, which the speaker calls "mother of blood." The ending is quiet and graceful: the bird pivots, then slides down the ridge "quick as a sword," tying nature back to legend.