No More Learning

Witless a wrong so crying to withstand.

LXXIV
"Might I not have excused myself? -- The king
Had not perchance gainsaid my better right --
Of if he had gainsaid my reasoning,
Who would have taken thee in my despite?
Why not have armed, and rather let them wring
My heart out of my breast? But not the might
Of Charles or all his host, had they been tried,
Could have availed to tear thee from my side.

LXXV
"Oh! had he placed her but in strong repair,
Guarded in some good fort, or Paris-town!
-- Since he would trust her to Duke Namus' care,
That he should lose her in this way, alone
Sorts with my wish. -- Who would have kept the fair
Like me, that would for her to death have gone?
Have kept her better than my heart or sight:
Who should and could, yet did not what I might.

LXXVI
"Without me, my sweet life, beshrew me, where
Art thou bestowed, so beautiful and young!
As some lost lamb, what time the daylight fair
Shuts in, remains the wildering woods among,
And goes about lamenting here and there,
Hoping to warn the shepherd with her tongue;
Till the wolf hear from far the mournful strain,
And the sad shepherd weep for her in vain.

LXXVII
"My hope, where are thou, where? In doleful wise
Dost thou, perchance, yet rove thy lonely round?
Art thou, indeed, to ravening wolf a prize,
Without thy faithful Roland's succour found?
And is the flower, which, with the deities,
Me, in mid heaven had placed, which, not to wound,
(So reverent was my love) thy feelings chaste,
I kept untouched, alas! now plucked and waste?

LXXVIII
"If this fair flower be plucked, oh, misery! oh,
Despair! what more is left me but to die?
Almighty God, with every other woe
Rather than this, thy wretched suppliant try.
If this be true, these hands the fatal blow
Shall deal, and doom me to eternity. "
Mixing his plaint with bitter tears and sighs,
So to himself the grieved Orlando cries.

LXXIX
Already every where, with due repose,
Creatures restored their weary spirits; laid
These upon stones and upon feathers those,
Or greensward, in the beech or myrtle's shade:
But scarcely did thine eyes, Orlando close,
So on thy mind tormenting fancies preyed.
Nor would the vexing thoughts which bred annoy,
Let thee in peace that fleeting sleep enjoy.

LXXX
To good Orlando it appeared as he,
Mid odorous flowers, upon a grassy bed,
Were gazing on that beauteous ivory,
Which Love's own hand had tinged with native red;
And those two stars of pure transparency,
With which he in Love's toils his fancy fed:
Of those bright eyes, and that bright face, I say,
Which from his breast had torn his heart away.

LXXXI
He with the fullest pleasure overflows,
That ever happy lover did content:
But, lo! this time a mighty tempest rose,
And wasted flowers, and trees uptore and rent.
Not with the rage with which this whirlwind blows,
Joust warring winds, north, south, and east, unpent.
It seemed, as if in search of covering shade,
He, vainly wandering, through a desert strayed.

LXXXII
Meanwhile the unhappy lover lost the dame
In that dim air, nor how he lost her, weets;
And, roving far and near, her beauteous name
Through every sounding wood and plain repeats.