No More Learning

There was no stop; there was no interval;
For they have laid in rest their lances keen:
But I into too foul a fault should fall
Meseems, my lord, if, while their deeds I tell
I let Rogero perish in the swell.

XLVII
Cleaving the flood with nimble hands and feet
He swims, amid the horrid surges' roar,
On him the threatening wind and tempest beat,
But him his harassed conscience vexes more.
Christ's wrath he fears; and, since in waters sweet
(When time and fair occasion served of yore)
He, in his folly, baptism little prized,
Fears in these bitter waves to be baptized.

XLVIII
Those many promises remembered are
Whereby he to his lady-love was tied,
Those oaths which sworn to good Rinaldo were,
And were in nought fulfilled upon his side.
To God, in hope that he would hear and spare,
That he repented, oftentimes he cried,
And, should he land, and scape that mortal scaith,
To be a Christian, vowed in heart and faith;

XLIX
And ne'er, in succour of the Moorish train,
With sword or lance, the faithful to offend;
And into France, where he to Charlemagne
Would render honour due, forthwith to wend;
Nor Bradamant with idle words again
To cheat, but bring his love to honest end.
A miracle it is that, as he vows,
He swims more lightly and his vigour grows.

L
His vigour grows; unwearied is his mind;
And still his arms from him the billow throw,
This billow followed fast by that behind;
Whereof one lifts him high, one sinks him low.
Rising and falling, vext by wave and wind,
So gains the Child that shore with labour slow;
And where the rocky hill slopes seaward most,
All drenched and dropping, climbs the rugged coast.

LI
All the others that had plunged into the flood
In the end, o'erwhelmed by those wild waters died.
Rogero, as to Providence seemed good,
Mounted the solitary islet's side.
When safe upon the barren rock he stood,
A new alarm the stripling terrified;
To be within those narrow bounds confined,
And die, with hardship and with hunger pined.

LII
Yet he with an unconquered heart, intent
To suffer what the heavens for him ordained,
O'er those hard stones, against that steep ascent,
Towards the top with feet intrepid strained;
And not a hundred yards had gone, when, bent
With years, and with long fast and vigil stained,
He worthy of much worship one espied,
In hermit's weed, descend the mountain's side;

LIII
Who cries, on his approaching him, "Saul, Saul,
Why persecutest thou my faithful seed? "
As whilom said the Saviour to Saint Paul,
When (blessed stroke! ) he smote him from his steed.
"Thou thought'st to pass the sea, nor pay withal;
Thought'st to defraud the pilot of his meed.
Thou seest that God has arms to reach and smite,
When farthest off thou deem'st that God of might. "

LIV
And he, that holiest anchoret, pursued,
To whom the night foregoing God did send
A vision, as he slumbered, and foreshewed
How, thither by his aid the Child should wend;
Wherein his past and future life, reviewed,
Were seen, as well as his unhappy end;
And sons, and grandsons, and his every heir,
Fully revealed to that good hermit were.

LV
That anchoret pursues, and does upbraid
Rogero first, and comforts finally:
Upbraideth him, because he had delaid
Beneath that easy yoke to bend the knee;
And what he should have done, when whilom prayed
And called of Christ -- then uncompelled and free --
Had done with little grace; nor turned to God
Until he saw him threatening with the rod.

LVI
Then comforts him -- that Christ aye heaven allows
To them, that late or early heaven desire;
And all those labourers of the Gospel shows,
Paid by the vineyard's lord with equal hire.
With charity and warm devotion glows,
And him instructs the venerable sire,
As toward the rocky cell where he resides
He with weak steps and slow Rogero guides.

LVII
Above that hallowed cell, on the hill's brow,
A little church receives the rising day;
Commodious is the fane and fair enow;
Thence to the beach descends a thicket gray,
Where fertile and fruit-bearing palm-trees blow,
Myrtle, and lowly juniper, and bay,
Evermore threaded by a limpid fountain,
Which falls with ceaseless murmur from the mountain.

LVIII
'Twas well nigh forty years, since on that stone
The goodly friar had fixed his quiet seat;
Which, there to live a holy life, alone,
For him the Saviour chose, as harbourage meet.
Pure water was his drink, and, plucked from one,
Or the other plant, wild berries were his meat;
And hearty and robust, of ailments clear,
The holy man had reached his eightieth year.

LIX
That hermit lit a fire, and heaped the board
With different fruits, within his small repair;
Wherewith the Child somedeal his strength restored,
When he had dried his clothes and dripping hair.
After, at better ease, to him God's word
And mysteries of our faith expounded were;
And the day following, in his fountain clear,
That anchoret baptized the cavalier.

LX
There dwells the young Rogero, well content
With what the rugged sojourn does allow;
In that the friar showed shortly his intent
To send him where he fain would turn his prow.
Meanwhile with him he many an argument
Handles and often; of God's kingdom now;
Now of things appertaining to his case;
Now to Rogero's blood, a future race.

LXI
The Lord, that every thing doth see and hear,
Had to that holiest anchoret bewrayed,
How he should not exceed the seventh year,
Dating from when he was a Christian made;
Who for the death of Pinabel whilere,
(His lady's deed, but on Rogero laid)
As well as Bertolagi's, should be slain
By false Maganza's ill and impious train;

LXII
And, how that treason should be smothered so,
No sign thereof should outwardly appear;
For where that evil people dealt the blow,
They should entomb the youthful cavalier.
For this should vengeance follow, albeit slow,
Dealt by his consort and his sister dear;
And how he by his wife should long be sought,
With weary womb, with heavy burden fraught,

LXIII
'Twixt Brenta and Athesis, beneath those hills
(Which erst the good Antenor so contented,
With their sulphureous veins and liquid rills,
And mead, and field, with furrows glad indented,
That he for these left pools which Xanthus fills;
And Ida, and Ascanius long lamented,)
Till she a child should in the forests bear,
Which little distant from Ateste are;

LXIV
And how the Child, in might and beauty grown,
That, like his sire, Rogero shall be hight,
Those Trojans, as of Trojan lineage known,
Shall for their lord elect with solemn rite;
Who next by Charles (in succour of whose crown
Against the Lombards shall the stripling fight)
Of that fair land dominion shall obtain,
And the honoured title of a marquis gain;

LXV
And because Charles shall say in Latin `Este',
(That is -- be lords of the dominion round! )
Entitled in a future season Este
Shall with good omen be that beauteous ground;
And thus its ancient title of Ateste
Shall of its two first letters lose the sound.
God also to his servant had foresaid
The vengeance taken for Rogero's dead;

LXVI
Who shall, in vision, to his consort true
Appear somedeal before the dawn of day;
And shall relate how him the traitor slew,
And where his body lies to her shall say.