No More Learning

The Moor to council daily calls his court;
Nor care nor cost the watchful monarch spares:
Meanwhile sore taxes and repeated cess,
All Africa's o'erburdened towns oppress.

V
He offers Rodomont, if to his side
He will return, but offers him in vain,
Renowned Almontes' daughter, as a bride;
His cousin she, her portion Oran's reign.
He lures not from his bridge that knight of pride,
Who has so many sells, such plate and chain
Collected there, from cavaliers o'erthrown,
As serve to hide the monumental stone.

VI
Marphisa would not such a course pursue:
Nay, the redoubted damsel hearing said
That Agramant, subdued by Charles's crew,
-- His choicest warriors taken, chased, or dead --
In Arles was sheltered with his broken few,
Thither, unbidden by the monarch, sped,
Prompt to assist him with her friendly blade;
And proffered purse and person in his aid.

VII
As a free gift to him the martial fair
Brunello bore, nor had she done him wrong.
He, for ten days and nights, to swing in air,
Had sorely feared, from lofty gallows hung:
But seeing him unhelped by force or prayer
Of any one amid the paynim throng,
She thought foul scorn to stain her generous hands
With such base blood, and loosed the losel's bands.

VIII
She pardoned every ancient injury,
And him to Agramant in Arles conveyed.
Well may you fancy with what joy and glee
The monarch greeted her who brought him aid;
He in Brunello's fate wills all shall see
In what esteem he holds that warlike maid;
For he in earnest does upon her foe
What fierce Marphisa menaced but in show.

IX
The hangman hung his corpse in desert field,
The craving vulture and the crow to feed.
Rogero, that erewhile had been his shield,
And from the noose that caitiff would have freed,
Heaven's justice willed, now lay with wound unhealed,
Nor could assist the craven in his need;
And when the news were known, the knot was tied;
So that Brunello, unassisted, died.

X
This while does good duke Aymon's daughter mourn,
Because those twenty days so slowly trail:
-- Which term elapsed -- Rogero should return,
And be received into her church's pale.
Time halts not more with him to foreign bourne
Exiled, with prisoner pent in noisome jail,
Pines the poor wretch for liberty and light,
Or his loved land, desired and gladsome sight!

XI
Aye sick with hope deferred, the expecting maid,
That Phoebus' steeds were foundered one while deemed;
Then that his wheels were out of frame, so stayed,
Beyond the wonted term, his chariot seemed.
Yet longer than that day when Faith delayed
The sun, which on the righteous Hebrew beamed,
Or than that night Alcides was conceived,
She every day and every night believed.

XII
How oft of dormouse, badger, or of bear,
The heavy slumber would she fain partake!
For she that time in sleep would waste and wear;
Nor such prolonged repose desired to break;
Nor wished the damsel any sound to hear,
Until Rogero's voice should her awake:
But not alone is this beyond her power;
She cannot close her eyes one single hour.

XIII
She here and there, throughout the livelong night,
Tosses and turns, nor ever finds repose;
And still, impatient for the dawn of light,
From time to time she to her window goes,
To see if Tithon's spouse the lily white
Yet scatters mingled with the crimson rose.
Nor less desires the damsel, when 'tis morn,
To see the golden stars the heaven adorn.

XIV
When, saving some four days, the term was ended,
Appointed for the youthful warrior's stay,
She, full of hope, the messenger attended
From hour to hour, that should arrive, and say,
"Behold Rogero comes"; and oft ascended
A turret, from whose top she might survey
Gay champaign, wood, and, mid the wide expanse,
A portion of the road, that led to France.

XV
When shining arms at distance she perceives,
Or any thing that speaks a cavalier,
'Tis her desired Rogero, she believes;
And her fair eyes and brows are seen to clear.
If footman, or unarmed, the maid conceives,
It is a courier from the youthful peer;
And, though fallacious every hope she feeds,
Another and another aye succeeds.

XVI
And then she arms, and will the warrior meet;
And from the hill descends into the plain:
She finds him not, and to Montalban's seat
Hopes he by other road his way has ta'en.
In the design, wherewith she moved her feet
From thence, she to her fort returns in vain;
Nor finds him here nor there; meanwhile expired
The period whose approach she so desired.

XVII
-- The period so prefixt o'erpast by one,
By two, three, six, by eight, by twenty days --
She seeing not her spouse, and tidings none
Receiving of the youth, laments 'gan raise,
Which had from snake-haired Furies pity won,
In those dark realms that Rhadamanthus sways.
She smote her eyes divine, and bosoms fair;
She rent the tresses of her golden hair.

XVIII
"Can it be true? " -- (she cried) -- "Shall I be fain
To follow one, that strives to hide and fly?
Esteem a man that has me in disdain?
Pray him that never hears my suppliant cry?
Suffer who hates me o'er my heart to reign?
One that his lofty virtues holds so high,
'Twere need some heaven-born goddess should descend
From realms above, his stubborn heart to bend?