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SIR ROLAND; A FRAGMENT, by                    
First Line: The knight with starry shield / chased the gigantic spoiler from the field
Last Line: And smote his heart_____
Alternate Author Name(s): Della Crusca
Subject(s): Knights & Knighthood


_____The knight with starry shield
Chased the gigantic spoiler from the field:
But soon each sorrow of his soul returns,
With jealous rage and fierce revenge he burns;
Spurs his fleet courser on in wild despair,
And calls aloud his violated fair.
Now midnight reigned, and through the troublous skies
The sharp hail drives, and yelling blasts arise;
Yet brave Sir Roland with unslackened force
O'er the lone heath pursues his eager course;
With curses rends the air, and draws to war
The potent wizard of the shadowy car.
Far off he viewed a solitary light,
Whose paly lustre pierced the gloom of night;
Thither the lovelorn hero bends his speed,
While mountains answer to the neighing steed.
Soon as arrived, his wond'ring eyes behold
A pensive damsel, decked in robes of gold,
While mingling diamonds their effulgence shed,
With the pearl's modest white and ruby's red.
Beneath an aged cypress she reclined;
A pendant lamp was waving in the wind,
That scattered far a melancholy gleam,
And tinged the wat'ry waste with feeble beam.
For near, an ocean roared and dashed around
Its foamy billows with terrific sound;
And ever and anon was heard the cry
Of shipwrecked men in dying agony.
At his approach she starts, then lifts her veil,
And shows a sunken visage ghastly pale;
On the intrepid knight her languid gaze
Intently fixes, and at length she says:
'The wished-for hour is come, by fate's decree,
And thou shalt traverse yonder deep with me.
The bark attends; and lo! the wanton gale
Swells the soft bosom of th' impatient sail.
Then linger not, but all-enraptured share
The promised bliss, nor mourn thy ravished fair:
I love thy manly form, thy youthful face,
Admire thy valour and adore thy grace.'
The knight observed her with astonished eye,
And much he wished, but more he scorned, to fly:
For, as the breeze assailed her gorgeous vest,
The opening folds disclosed a putrid breast.
Nearer he comes and marks, deprived of skin,
Her haggard jaws display a direful grin.
Onward she goes; by incantation's laws
Th' amazed Sir Roland unresisting draws.
'Here leave thy steed,' she cries, 'and never more
Shalt thou behold him on this hated shore.
But gentlest joys th' approaching hours await,
And Beauty spreads for thee her couch of state.'
Then beck'ning mounts the bark; the knight obeys,
Nor quits her guiding lamp's unhallowed rays.
Soon as the vessel cuts the foamy tide,
Around strange spectres and fell monsters glide:
One bathed in tears rose from the liquid bed,
With the soft semblance of a virgin's head.
Thrice waved her hand and shook her sedgy hair,
And heaved a piteous sigh, and cried—'Beware!'
Next came an aged seer, whose feeble breath
Could scarcely utter—'Knight, beware of death!'
Then plunging downward in a serpent's form,
They curled the surges like an angry storm.
Now thousand other grisly shapes were seen,
Rolling their fiery eyes the waves between:
Here shrieking maidens felt the forced embrace,
There Murder laughed, and showed his guilty face.
A moment after, all was hushed and o'er,
And such portentous phantoms threat no more.
But now the female at Sir Roland's side,
Who silent long the dauntless youth had eyed
With foul grimaces, on a sudden pressed
The knight abhorrent to her mangled breast;
Strove with the winning voice of love to speak,
And laid her bare skull on his lily cheek;
Imprints the bony kiss and fain would win
The chaste Sir Roland to the deadly sin.
But when she finds not magic art inspires
The wild commotion of unholy fires,
Observes him shrink beneath her love's excess,
And turn in anguish from the loathed caress,
Starting she left him, and in fury cried,
'O knight accursed! thou soon shalt rue thy pride':
Then seized her lamp and, scowling with disdain,
Sought the calm bottom of the roaring main.
Dark was the night, and o'er the pathless way
With rapid force the ship appeared to stray.
In vain the youth with eye attentive seeks
The first faint dawning of the eastern streaks,
But all was hopeless, and no glimm'ring light
Gave the wished earnest of departing night.
Now to a shore the bark quick-striking came,
And, as the shock sent forth a sudden flame,
The hero leaps upon th' uncertain strand,
And lifts his unsheathed sword with desperate hand.
While slow he trod this desolated coast,
From the cracked ground uprose a warning ghost,
Whose figure all-confused was dire to view,
And loose his mantle flowed of shifting hue.
He shed a lustre round, and sadly pressed
What seemed his hand upon what seemed his breast;
Then raised his doleful voice, like wolves that roar
In famished troops on Orcus' sleepy shore:
'Approach yon antiquated tow'r,' he cried,
'There bold Rinaldo, fierce Mambrino died:
Thou too, perchance, shalt tread the selfsame road;
Approach (so fate commands) the dark abode.'
The knight advancing struck the fatal door,
And hollow chambers send a sullen roar.
As slow it opens, there appears a page,
With limbs of pliant youth and face of age:
'Welcome,' he cried, 'from dangers thou hast shared;
The banquet's ready and thy bed prepared.'
Through winding passages the knight he leads,
And often sighs, and often tells his beads;
Stops at an entrance stained with blood, and said,
'Accept, brave youth, the banquet and the bed.'
Then screaming loud he vanished from the sight,
And the bell tolled amid the silent night.
Sir Roland enters where, throughout the room,
One taper shows the melancholy gloom;
And rudely hanging by her twisted hair,
A slaughtered female's starting eyeballs glare;
While, from the curtained bed, such groans arose
As spoke the anguish of severest woes,
And smote his heart_____





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