7104 
With undistinguish’d dead the mountains 
groan, 
A heap of slaughter Roncesvalles lies. 
Oh! what a pang of grief oppress*d his brain, 
As his strain’d eye-balls rested on the siain! 
And, “‘Oh!” he cried, ‘* Ye gallant souls 
thrice blest, 
Whose woes are buried in that bloody 
tomb ! 
For me, I know my fate, yet cannot rest, 
Feel Death approaching, yet he will not 
come— 
How calm and peaceful is thy gentle breast, 
My Oliver! how sweet Astolpho’s doom! 
Oh yet some human pity feel for me, 
And aid my soul just struggling to be free!” ; 
C. 27. St. 100. 
An impulse of heroic vanity prompted 
him to wish that no unworthy hand 
might, after his death, grasp his sword 
Durindana; he therefore struck it with 
all his might on a hard rock to break it ; 
but the rock itself, instead, gave way to 
the irresistible temper of the blade, and 
the tremendous strength of his dying arm. 
To this day travellers in the Pyrenees are 
shewn the cloven rock and the split horn 
of Roland. 
Rinaldo, tired of the pursuit, came 
back, with Richardetto and Archbishop 
Turpin, just in time to receive the dying 
words of his friend, who, having confessed 
all the sins of his life to Turpin, and re- 
ceived absolution, prayed fervently to 
heaven for forgiveness, as he was a man, 
and created with human frailties: 
E perdonasti a tutta la Natura, 
Quando tu perdonasti al primo Padre! 
His prayer for himself, his friends, and 
his country, ended with these words: 
<¢ Oh holy Saviour! I commend to thee 
My Alda-belle, my dear, my widow’d 
wife ; 
And, if she weds another lord than me, 
Grant her a better choice, a happier life! 
Oh guard my king in his declining years, 
And these my fellow-soldiers, and my peers!” 
Thus had he offer’d up his pious pray’r 
With sighs, and tears, and breath’d his last 
desire, 
When o’er the dying knight, with sudden 
glare, 
Flash’d from the sun three beams of 
*  heav’nly fire. 
His friends stood round him, with dejected 
air, 
Like childten at the death-bed of their 
sire. 
No words the dread and solemn. silence 
broke, 
Save where deep groans the heart’s sad lan~- 
guage spoke, 
2 
Critical Observations on the Morgante Maggiore. 
Soft music, mingled with that heav’nly light, 
In sweet, low, murmurs, stole upon their 
ears 3 
And, like some dying gale of balmy night, 
A spirit seem’d descending from the spheres. 
Orlando rais’d his intellectual sight, 
When lo! before his ravish’d eye appears 
He who from heav’n to our benighted earth 
Bore the glad tidings of the Saviour’s birth. 
St. 150. 
This celestial messenger cheer’d the 
last moments of the departing hero with 
the full assurance “ of offence forgiven,” 
of a re-union in heaven with the friends 
who loved and bled for him om earth, 
aad with his chaste and widowed Alda- 
belle. 
Bright with eternal-joy and deathless bloom, 
Thy Alda-belle thou shalt behold once 
MOH, 
Partaker of a life beyond the tomb 
With her whom Sinai’s holy hills adore 5 
Crown’d with fresh flow’rs whose colours and 
perfume 
Exceed whatever spring’s rich bosom bore : 
On earth, thy mourning widow she'll re- 
main, 
And be, in heav’n, thy blessed spouse again ! 
St. 145. 
The angel then having vanished, Or- 
lando once more embraced his friends, 
arid mingied his tears with theirs. « Then 
he commended his soul toHeaven. Ri- 
naldo felt the weakness of affection come 
over him, and with a melancholy voice 
exclaimed, 
Dove mi lasci, oh Cugin mio, soletto? 
But recollecting the words of the angel, 
ceased his complaint, and remained silent 
from awe and reverence, while Orlando 
calmly surrendered himself to death. 
With look seraphic, turn’d and fix’d on high, 
He seem’d transfigur’d from this earthly 
vest, 
And holding sacred converse with the sky—= 
_ Oh happy end! oh soul supremely blest! 
At last he hung his languid head to die, 
And the freed spirit left his holy breast : 
But, first, the pummel of his sword he laid 
Fix’d to his heart, his arms across the blade.* 
The sound of distant thunder shook the 
skies, a 
Play’d round the hills, and in the vallies _ 
F died; i 
From snowy clouds bright starry meteors rise 
And thro’the air celestial lustres glide, 
TS 
* This is exactly according to the posture 
of the marble Tenplars and Crusaders in our 
cathedral churches. 
And 
