Classic Poem

A LL night, the Saracens, in their battered stations,
Feeling but ill secure, and sore distressed,
Gave way to tears, and groans, and lamentations,
Only as hushed as might be, and suppressed;
Some for the loss of friends and of relations
Left on the field; others for want of rest,
Who had been wounded and were far from home;
But most for dread of what was yet to come.

Among the rest two Moorish youths were there,
Born of a lowly stock in Ptolemais,
Whose story teems with evidence so rare
Of tried affection, it must here find place.
Their names Medoro and Cloridano were
They had shown Dardinel the same true face,
Whatever fortune waited on his lance,
And now had crossed the sea with him to France.

The one, a hunter, used to every sky,
Was of the rougher make, but prompt and fleet:
Medoro had a cheek of rosy dye,
Fair, and delightful for its youth complete:
Of all that came to that great chivalry,
None had a face more lively or more sweet
Black eyes he had, and sunny curls of hair;
He seemed an angel, newly from the air.

These two, with others, where the ramparts lay,
Were keeping watch to guard against surprise,
What time the Night, in middle of its way,
Wonders at heaven with its drowsy eyes
Medoro there, in all he had to say,
Could not but talk, with sadness and with sighs,
Of Dardinel his lord; nay, feel remorse,
Though guiltless for his yet unburied corse

" O Cloridan," he said, " I try in vain
To bear the thought; nor ought I, if I could.
Think of a man like that, left on the plain
For wolves and crows! he, too, that was so good
To my poor self! How can he thus remain,
And I stand here, sparing my wretched blood?
Which, for his sake, might twenty times o'erflow,
And yet not pay him half the debt I owe.

" I will go forth, — I will, — and seek him yet,
That he may want not a grave's covering;
And God will grant, perhaps, that I may get
E'en to the sleeping camp of the French king.
Do thou remain; for if my name is set
For death in heaven, thou mayst relate the thing;
So that if fate cut short the glorious part,
The world may know 'twas not for want of heart."

Struck with amaze was Cloridan to see
Such heart, such love, such duty in a youth;
And laboured (for he loved him tenderly)
To turn a thought so dangerous to them both;
But no — a sorrow of that high degree
Is no such thing to comfort or to soothe.
Medoro was disposed, either to die,
Or give his lord a grave wherein to lie.

Seeing that nothing bent him or could move,
Cloridan cried, " My road then shall be thine: —
I too will join in such a work of love;
I too would clasp a death-bed so divine.
Life — pleasure — glory — what would it behove
Remaining without thee, Medoro mine.
Such death with thee would better far become me,
Than die for grief, shouldst thou be taken from me."

Thus both resolved, they put into their place
The next on guard, and slip from the redoubt.
They cross the ditch, and in a little space
Enter our quarters, looking round about.
So little dream we of a Moorish face,
Our camp is hushed, and every fire gone out
'Twixt heaps of arms and carriages they creep,
Up to the very eyes in wine and sleep.

Cloridan stopped awhile, and said, " Look here!
Occasions are not things to let go by.
Some of the race who cost our lord so dear,
Surely, Medoro, by this arm must die.
Do thou meanwhile keep watch, all eye and ear,
Lest any one should come: — I'll push on, I,
And lead the way, and make through bed and board
An ample passage for thee with my sword."

He said; and entered without more ado
The tent where Alpheus lay, a learned Mars,
Who had but lately come to court, and knew
Physic, and magic, and a world of stars.
This was a cast they had not helped him to;
Indeed their flatteries had been all a farce;
For he had found, that after a long life
He was to die, poor man, beside his wife:

And now the cautious Saracen has put
His sword, as true as lancet, in his weason.
Four mouths close by are equally well shut,
Before they can find time to ask the reason.
Their names are not in Turpin; and I cut
Their lives as short, not to be out of season.
Next Palidon died, a man of snug resources,
Who had made up his bed between two horses.

They then arrived, where, pillowing his head
Upon a barrel, lay unhappy Grill
Much vowed had he, and much believed indeed,
That he that blessed night, would sleep his fill.
The reckless Moor beheads him on his bed,
And wastes his blood and wine at the same spill:
For he held quarts; and in his dreams that very
Moment had filled, but found his glass miscarry.

Near Grill, a German and a Greek there lay,
Andropono and Conrad, who had passed
Much of the night al fresco , in drink and play;
A single stroke a-piece made it their last.
Happy, if they had thought to play away
Till daylight on their board his eye had cast!
But fate determines all these matters still,
Let us arrange them for her as we will.

Like as a lion in a fold of sheep,
Whom desperate hunger has made gaunt and spare,
Kills, bleeds, devours, and mangles in a heap
The feeble flock collected meekly there;
So the fierce Pagan bleeds us in our sleep,
And lays about, and butchers every where:
And now Medoro joins the dreadful sport,
But scorns to strike among the meaner sort.

Upon a duke he came, La Brett, who slept
Fast in his lady's arms, embraced and fixed;
So close they were, so fondly had they kept,
That not the air itself could get betwixt.
O'er both their necks at once the falchion swept
O happy death! O cup too sweetly mixed!
For as their bosoms and affections were,
E'en so, I trust, their souls went clasped in air.

Ardalic and Malindo next are slain,
Princes whose race the Flemish sceptre wield;
They had been just made knights by Charlemagne,
And had the lilies added to their shield,
Because, the hardest day of the campaign,
He saw them both turn blood-red in the field.
Lands, too, he said, he'd give; and would have done it,
Had not Medoro put his veto on it.

The wily sword was reaching now the ring
Of the pavilions of the peers, — the fence
Of the more high pavilion of the king.
They were his guard by turns. The Saracens
Here make a halt, and think it fit to bring
Their slaughter to a close, and get them hence;
Since it appears impossible to make
So wide a circuit, and find none awake.

They might have got much booty if they chose,
But now to get clean off is their great good.
Cloridan leads as heretofore, and goes
Picking the safest way out that he could.
At last they come, where, amidst shields and bows,
And swords, and spears, in one great plash of blood,
Lie poor and rich, the monarch and the slave,
And men and horses, heaped without a grave.

The horrible mixture of the bodies there,
(For all the field was reeking round about)
Would have made vain their melancholy care
Till day-time, which 'twas best to do without,
Had not the Moon, at poor Medoro's prayer,
Put from a darksome cloud her bright horn out.
Medoro to the beam devoutly raised
His head, and thus petitioned as he gazed: —

" O holy queen, who by our ancestors
Justly wert worshipped by a triple name;
Who show'st in heav'n, and earth, and hell, thy powers
And beauteous face, another and the same;
And who in forests, thy old favourite bowers,
Art the great huntress, following the game;
Show me, I pray thee, where my sovereign lies,
Who while he lived found favour in thine eyes."

At this, whether 'twas chance or faith, the moon
Parted the cloud, and issued with a stoop,
Fair, as when first she kissed Endymion,
And to his arms gave herself naked up.
The city, at that light, burst forth and shone,
And both the camps, and all the plain and slope,
And the two hills that rose on either quarter,
Far from the walls, Montlery and Montmartre.

Most brilliantly of all the lustre showered
Where lay the son of great Almontes, dead.
Medoro, weeping, went to his dear lord,
Whom by his shield he knew, of white and red.
The bitter tears bathed all his face, and poured
From either eye, like founts along their bed.
So sweet his ways, so sweet his sorrows were,
They might have stopt the very winds to hear.

But low he wept, and scarcely audible;
Not that he cared what a surprise might cost,
From any dread of dying; for he still
Felt a contempt for life, and wished it lost;
But from the fear, lest ere he could fulfil
His pious business there, it might be crost.
Raised on their shoulders is the-crowned load;
And shared between them thus, they take their road.

With the dear weight they make what speed they may,
Like an escaping mother to a birth;
And now comes he, the lord of life and day,
To take the stars from heav'n, the shade from earth;
When the young Scottish prince, who never lay
Sleeping, when things were to be done of worth,
After continuing the pursuit all night
Came to the field with the first morning light.

And with him came, about him and behind,
A troop of knights, whom they could see from far,
All met upon the road, in the same mind
To search the field for precious spoils of war.
" Brother," said Cloridan, " we must needs, I find,
Lay down our load, and try how fleet we are
It would be hardly wise to have it said,
We lost two living bodies for a dead."

And off he shook his burden, with that word,
Fancying Medoro would do just the same;
But the poor boy, who better loved his lord,
Took on his shoulders all the weight that came.
The other ran, as if with one accord,
Not guessing what had made his fellow lame.
Had he, he would have dared, not merely one,
But heaps of deaths, rather than fled alone.

The knights, who were determined that those two
Should either yield them prisoners or die,
Dispersed themselves, and without more ado
Seized every pass which they might issue by.
The chief himself rode on before, and drew
Nearer and nearer with a steadfast eye;
For seeing them betray such marks of fear,
'Twas plain that in those two no friends were near.

There was an old forest there in those days,
Thick with o'ershadowing trees and underwood,
Which, like a labyrinth, ran into a maze
Of narrow paths, and made a solitude.
The fliers reckoned on its friendly ways,
For giving them close covert while pursued: —
But he that loves these chants of mine in rhyme,
May chuse to hear the rest another time.

None knows the heart in which he may confide,
As long as he sits high on Fortune's wheel;
For friends of all sorts then are by his side,
Who show him all the self-same face of zeal:
But let the goddess roll him from his pride,
The flattering set are off upon their heel;
And he who loved him in his heart alone
Stands firm, and will, even when life is gone.

If eyes could see the heart as well as face,
Many a great man at court would trample others,
And many an humble one in little grace,
Would change their destiny for one another's;
This would mount up into the highest place —
That go and help the scullions and their mothers.
But turn we to Medoro, good and true,
Who loved his lord, whatever fate could do.
The unhappy youth, now in the thickest way
Of all the wood, would fain have hidden close;

But the dead weight that on his shoulders lay,
Hampers his path, whichever side he goes
Strange to the country too, he goes astray,
And turns and tramples 'midst the brakes and boughs.
Meanwhile his friend, less burdened for the race,
Has got in safety to a distant place.

Cloridan came to where he heard no more
The hue and cry that sent him like a dart;
But when he turned about and missed Medor,
He seemed to have deserted his own heart.
" Great God!" he cried; " not to see this before!
How could I be so mad? How could I part
With thee, Medoro, and come driving here,
And never dream I left thee, how or where?

So saying, he returns with bitter sighs
Into the tangled wood, by the same path,
And keeps it narrowly with yearning eyes,
And treads with zeal the track of his own death.
And all the while, horses he hears, and cries,
And threatening voices that take short his breath:
And last of all he hears, and now can see,
Medoro, pressed about with cavalry.

They are a hundred, and all round him. He,
While the chief cries to take him prisoner,
Turns like a wheel, and faces valiantly
All that would seize him, leaping here and there,
Now to an elm, an oak, or other tree,
Nor ever parts he with his burden dear,
See! — he has laid it on the ground at last,
The better to controul and keep it fast.

Like as a bear, whom men in mountains start
In her old stony den, and dare, and goad,
Stands o'er her children with uncertain heart,
And roars for rage and sorrow in one mood:
Anger incites her, and her natural part,
To use her nails, and bathe her lips in blood;
Love melts her, and for all her angry roar,
Holds back her eyes to look on those she bore.

Cloridan knows not how to give his aid,
And yet he must, and die too: — that he knows:
But ere he changes from alive to dead,
He casts about to settle a few foes:
He takes an arrow, — one of his best made, —
And works so well in secret, that it goes
Into a Scotchman's head, right to the brains,
And jerks his lifeless fingers from the reins.

The horsemen in confusion turn about,
To see by what strange hand their fellow died,
When a new shaft 's in middle of the rout,
And the man tumbles by his fellow's side.
He was just wondering, and calling out,
And asking questions, fuming as he cried;
The arrow comes, and dashes to his throat,
And cuts him short in middle of his note.

Zerbin, the leader of the troop, could hold
His rage no longer at this new surprise,
But darting on the boy, with eyes that rolled,
" You shall repent this insolence," he cries;
Then twisting with his hand those locks of gold,
He drags him back, to see him as he dies;
But when he sets his eyes on that sweet face,
He could not do it, 'twas so hard a case.

The youth betook him to his prayers, and said,
" For God's sake, sir, be not so merciless
As to prevent my burying the dead:
'Tis a king's body that 's in this distress:
Think not I ask from any other dread;
Life could give me but little happiness.
All the life now which I desire to have,
Is just enough to give my lord a grave.

" If you've a Theban heart, and birds of prey
Must have their food before your rage can cool,
Feast them on me; only do let me lay
His limbs in earth, that has been used to rule."
So spake the young Medoro, in a way
To turn a rock, it was so beautiful.
As for the prince, so deeply was he moved,
That all at once he pardoned and he loved.

A ruffian, at this juncture, of the band,
Little restrained by what restrained the rest,
Thrust with his lance across the suppliant's hand,
And pierced his delicate and faithful breast.
The act, — in one too under his command, —
Displeased the princely chief, and much distressed;
The more so, as the poor boy dropped his head,
And fell so pale that all believed him dead.

Such was his grief, and such was his disdain,
That crying out, " The blood be on his head!"
He turned in wrath, to give the thrust again;
But the false villain, ere the words were said,
Put spurs into his horse and fled amain,
Stooping his rascal shoulders, as he fled.
Cloridan, when he sees Medoro fall,
Leaps from the wood, and comes defying all;

And casts away his bow, and almost mad,
Goes slashing round among his enemies,
Rather for death, than any hope he had
Of cutting his revenge to its fit size.
His blood soon coloured many a dripping blade,
And he perceives with pleasure that he dies;
And so his strength being fairly at an end,
He lets himself fall down beside his friend.

The troop then followed where their chief had gone,
Pursuing his stern chase among the trees,
And leave the two companions there alone,
One surely dead, the other scarcely less.
Long time Medoro lay without a groan,
Losing his blood in such large quantities,
That life would surely have gone out at last,
Had not a helping hand been coming past.

There came by chance a damsel passing there,
Cloaked like a peasant, to eschew surprise,
But of a royal presence, and so fair,
As well behoved her keep grave maiden eyes,
'Tis so long since I told you news of her,
Perhaps you know her not in this disguise.
This, you must know then, was Angelica,
Proud daughter of the Khan of great Cathay.

You know the magic ring, and her distress?
Well, when she had recovered this same ring,
It so increased her pride and haughtiness,
She seemed too high for any living thing.
She goes alone, desiring nothing less
Than a companion, even though a king:
She even scorns to recollect the flame
Of one Orlando, or his very name.

But, above all, she hates to recollect
That she had taken to Rinaldo so;
She thinks it the last want of self-respect,
Pure degradation, to have looked so low.
" Such arrogance," said Cupid, " must be checked."
The little God betook him with his bow,
To where Medoro lay, and standing by,
Held the shaft ready with a lurking eye.

Now when the princess saw the youth all pale,
And found him grieving with his bitter wound,
Not for what one so young might well bewail,
But that his king should not be laid in ground,
She felt a something, strange and gentle, steal
Into her heart by some new way it found,
Which touched its hardness, and turned all to grace;
And more so, when he told her all his case.

And calling to her mind the little arts
Of healing, which she learnt in India,
(For 'twas a study valued in those parts,
Even for those who were in sovereign sway
And yet so easy, too, that like the heart's,
'Twas more inherited than learnt, they say,)
She cast about, with herbs and balmy juices,
To save so fair a life for all its uses.

And thinking of an herb that caught her eye
As she was coming, in a pleasant plain,
(Whether 'twas panacea, dittany,
Or some such herb accounted sovereign
For staunching blood quickly and tenderly,
And winning out all spasm and bad pain,)
She found it not far off, and gathering some,
Returned with it to save Medoro's bloom.

In coming back she met upon the way
A shepherd, who was riding through the wood
To find a heifer that had gone astray,
And been two days about the solitude.
She took him with her where Medoro lay,
Now feebler than he was, with loss of blood:
So much he lost, and drew so hard a breath,
That he was now fast fading to his death

Angelica got off her horse in haste,
And made the shepherd get as fast from his;
She ground the herbs with stones, and then expressed
With her white hands the balmy milkiness,
Then dropped it in the wound, and bathed his breast,
His sides, and spine, and all that was amiss:
And of such virtue was it, that at length
The blood was stopped and he looked round with strength.

At last he got upon the shepherd's horse,
But would not quit the place till he had seen
Laid in the ground his lord and master's corse;
And Cloridan lay with it, who had been
Smitten so fatally with sweet remorse.
He then obeys the will of the fair queen;
And she, for very pity of his lot,
Goes and stays with him at the shepherd's cot.

Nor would she leave him, she esteemed him so,
Till she had seen him well with her own eye;
So full of pity did her bosom grow,
Since first she saw him faint and like to die.
Seeing his manners now, and beauty too,
She felt her heart yearn somehow inwardly;
She felt her heart yearn somehow, till at last
'Twas all on fire, and burning warm and fast

The shepherd's house was good enough, and neat,
A little shady cottage in a dell:
The man had just rebuilt it all complete,
With room to spare, in case more births befel.
There with such knowledge did the lady treat
Her handsome patient, that he soon grew well;
But not before she felt, on her own part,
A secret wound much greater in her heart.

Much greater was the wound, and deeper far,
The invisible arrow made in her heart-strings;
'Twas from Medoro's lovely eyes and hair;
Twas from the naked archer with the wings.
She feels it now; she feels, and yet can bear
Another's less than her own sufferings.
She thinks not of herself: she thinks alone
How to cure him, by whom she is undone.

The more his wound recovers and gets ease,
Her own grows worse, and widens day by day.
The youth gets well; the lady languishes,
Now warm, now cold, as fitful fevers play.
His beauty heightens like the flowering trees;
She, miserable creature, melts away
Like the weak snow, which some warm sun has found
Fall'n, out of season, on a rising ground.

And must she speak at last, rather than die?
And must she plead without another's aid?
She must, she must; the vital moments fly —
She lives — she dies, a passion-wasted maid.
At length she burst all ties of modesty;
Her tongue explains her eyes; the words are said;
And she asks pity underneath that blow,
Which he perhaps that gave it, did not know.

O Count Orlando! O King Sacripant!
That fame of yours, say, what avails it ye?
That lofty honour, those great deeds ye vaunt,
Say, what 's their value with the lovely she?
Show me — recal to memory, (for I can't,)
Show me, I beg, one single courtesy
That ever she vouchsafed ye, far or near,
For all ye've done and have endured for her.

And you, if you could come to life again,
O Agrican, how hard 'twould seem to you,
Whose love was met by nothing but disdain,
And vile repulses, shocking to go through!
O Ferragus! O thousands, who in vain
Did all that loving and great hearts could do,
How would ye feel to see, with all her charms,
This thankless creature in a stripling's arms!

The young Medoro had the gathering
Of the first kiss on lips untouched before,
For never since her beauty blushed with spring,
Had passion's self dared aught except adore
To render the fond step an honest thing,
The priest was called to read the service o'er,
(For without marriage what can come but strife?)
And the bride-mother was the shepherd's wife.

All was performed, in short, that could be so
In such a place, to make the nuptials good:
Nor did the happy pair think fit to go,
But spent the month and more within the wood.
The lady to the stripling seemed to grow;
His step her step, his eyes her eyes pursued;
Nor did her love lose any of its zest,
Though she was always hanging on his breast.

In doors and out of doors, by night, by day,
She had the charmer by her side for ever:
Morning and evening they would stroll away,
Now by some field, or little tufted river:
They chose a cave in middle of the day,
Perhaps not less agreeable or clever
Than Dido and Æneas found to screen them,
When storm and tempest would have rushed between them.

And all this while there was not a smooth tree,
That drew from stream or fount its gentle pith,
Nor stone less hard than stones are apt to be,
But they would find a knife to carve it with.
And in a thousand places you might see,
And on the walls about you and beneath,
Angelica AND M EDORO , tied in one,
As many ways as lover's knots could run.

And when they thought they had outspent their time,
Angelica the royal took her way,
She and Medoro, to the Indian clime,
To crown him king of her fair realm, Cathay.