Let fall his sword — his least sensation fear;
Nor could contain himself. Before him stood
His murdered idol, moaning and in tears;
He can’t endure the sight of her dear blood,
Nor the faint plaintive wails that reach his ears.
XLVI
Thus the bold heart no dread of death could move,
No form of danger, no horrific fears;
Alone enfeebled by all-powerful love,
A phantom false deludes and idle tears.
A blast of wind meanwhile his sabre bore
Beyond the wood, so that o’ercome he left;
But on the roadway found, and grasped once more,
The sword amazement from his hand had reft
XLVII
Still he returned not, nor attempted more
The hidden secrets of the wood to scan,
But Godfred sought, and, trying to restore
Somewhat his scattered senses, thus began:
‘Of things not credited or credible
Herald am I, and must confirm their view,
Since all the accounts of the dread spectacle
And of the fearful sounds are strictly true.
XLVIII
‘Before mine eyes a wondrous fire appeared,
Which, self-sustained and quickly kindling, rose,
And thence dilating, lofty ramparts reared,
Where monsters stood my passage to oppose;
Yet these I passed, nor hindrance had, nor fight
Uninjured I, tho’ flames around me burned;
When of a sudden winter came and night,
But soon broad day and summer skies returned.
XLIX
‘Still more — within each tree there is transferred
A human soul, man’s very counterpart;
I know it from experience, having heard
A voice whose moans still echo in my heart;
The wounded trees distilled red drops of gore,
As formed of tender flesh. I must avow
My own defeat. No, no; I dare no more
Strip off the bark or pluck another bough.’
L
As thus he spake, the captain ‘gan to wave
In a great tempest of distracting thought,
Thinking should he the enchanted forest brave
(For such he fancied it), or if he ought
Material seek in some more distant place,
But not so difficult As thus he weighed
Both plans, the hermit sought his doubts to chase,
Recalled him from his reverie, and said:
LI
‘The bold design abandon; other hands
Must fell the wood. Lo! urged by favouring gales,
The fatal bark has reached the desert sands,
And now in harbour furls her golden sails;
Now, burst his bondage in Armida’s bower,
The expected warrior leaves his lone retreat;
Nor is far distant the predestined hour
Of Sion’s capture, and our foe’s defeat’
LII
While speaking thus, with zeal his features burned,
And more than mortal did his words resound.
And pious Godfred to new projects turned
His active thoughts, that little respite found;
But having entered in fierce Cancer’s sign,
The sun brought heat intense, unusual,
To his soldiers adverse, and to his own design,
As rendering labour insupportable.
LIII
Spent are the heavens’ benignant, friendly lamps,
And baleful meteors lord it in the sky,
Whence rains a blighting influence, that stamps
On air the seal of its malignant die;
The noxious heat increases, and aye breeds
On every side mortality more keen;
To deadly day more deadly night succeeds,
And days still worse are in succession seen.
LIV
The sun ne’er rises, that, o’ershadowed now
With blood-red mists which in and round it play,
It shows not clearly, in its angry brow,
The presage sad of an unhappy day;
Nor sets, that, with red blotches overcast,
At its return it threats not equal doom,
Embittering thus their sufferings of the past,
With certain dread of sufferings yet to come.
LV
And when it pours its radiance from on high,
Around, as far as mortal eye can stray,
The leaves are seen to fade, the flowers to die,
The parched-up grass to wither and decay;
Water to ‘minish, the cracked earth to gape,
Nor is there aught that ‘scapes heaven’s burning ire;
The barren clouds in air assume the shape
And awful semblance of great globes of fire.
LVI
A lurid furnace seems the leaden sky,
Nor to refresh the sight doth aught appear;
Still in their grots the slumbering zephyrs lie,
Hushed altogether is each breath of air;
Alone, as if from blazing torch, there blows
Sirocco’s blast from Mauritanian sands,
Whose stifling breath more dense each moment grows,
And strikes and suffocates the Christian bands.
LVII
No longer grateful fall the shades of night,
But with the sun’s full glare imprinted seem;
Inwrought her mantle is with comets bright,
With many a meteor flash, and fiery beam;
Nor to thy thirst, sad earth! her dewy showers
Concedes the miser moon. Thro’ all the plain,
The withered herbage, the exhausted flowers
Long for their vital moisture, but in vain.
LVIII
From restless nights sweet slumber exiled flies,
Nor can faint mortals call it back; repose
Comes not, though fondly courted, to their eyes;
But thirst is still the greatest of their woes:
Since with inhuman craft Judaea’s king
Did with the fountains deadly poison mix,
And thus more black and turbid made each spring
Than the infernal Acheron or Styx.
LIX
And little Siloë, whose crystal tide
Erst to the Franks its grateful treasures spread,
Now but a scant restorative supplied;
Its tepid waters scarce conceal its bed;
Nor had appeared superfluous to their want,
The Po in May, when it profoundest grows,
‘Nor Ganges, nor the Nile, when, not content
With its seven homes, it Egypt overflows.
LX
If any e’er thro’ shady banks had seen
Pure molten silver stagnate in a lake,
Or living water dash down Alps between,
Or its calm course thro’ flowery meadows take;
These in fond fancy they once more behold,
They furnish fresh material for their pain;
Their image, so refreshing and so cold,
Parches their lips and parboils in their brain.
LXI
The limbs of manliest, stoutest cavaliers,
That proof ‘gainst journey o’er the roughest road,
‘Gainst weight of armour, proof ‘gainst levelled spears
Of cruel foemen thirsting for their blood,
Relaxed and melted by the burning heat,
Now to themselves a useless burden lay,
While in their veins lurk secret fires, that eat
By slow degrees their very life away.
LXII
The war-horse languishes, so fierce before,
And loathes the grass, his former dearest food;
His faint limbs totter, the proud crest he bor
e
Droops to the ground dejected and subdued;
No longer mindful of his victories,
Nor with the love of glory more elate,
His victor trappings and embroideries
He now despises as ignoble weight.
LXIII
The faithful dog, too, languishes; all care
Of home and lord forgotten as he lies
Panting, outstretched, and with fresh draughts of air
To mitigate his inward fever tries;
For if boon Nature respiration gave,
To temper heat’s excessive vehemence,
Now it can none or small refreshment have,
Since this they breathe so heavy is and dense.
LXIV
Thus pined the earth; in such condition lay
Its wretched sons, consumed by burning thirst;
And the good, faithful host, despairing they
Of victory now, anticipate the worst.
On every side lamenting voices pour
Their loud complaints with simultaneous breath:
‘What hopes for Godfred? Why delays he more,
Till all the camp is swallowed up by death?
LXV
‘Ah! with what forces doth he hope to gain
The strong defences of our enemies?
Whence arms expect? Doth he alone disdain
To see Heaven’s wrath revealed in signs like these?
A thousand prodigies, a thousand signs,
How adverse is the Almighty mind assure;
On us the sun with such fierce fervour shines,
Less needs relief the Indian or the Moor.
LXVI
To him, insensible! imports it not
That we advance unto a death of pain;
Vile, useless beings, slighted and forgot,
That he forsooth his royal power maintain!
What! is it then such happiness to reign,
That he with so much eagerness should try
The pomp and ease of kingship to retain,
While thus around his subject-people die?
LXVII
‘Behold the piteous care and mind humane
Of him who bears the name of Pious — yet,
An empty, dangerous honour to retain,
Doth thus the safety of his troops forget;
And, seeing for us the founts and river dry,
For its cool crystal to the Jordan sends,
And at gay feasts, in joyous company,
The wines of Crete with its fresh water blonds,’
LXVIII
Thus the Franks murmured. But the Grecian chief,
Already tired their standard to pursue,
Exclaimed: ‘Why here expire without relief?
Why witness thus my people perish too?
If, in his madness, Godfred be so blind,
Let him and his the consequences rue;
What’s that to us?’ Nor would he stay behind
Ev’n to take leave, but in the night withdrew.
LXIX
Contagious was the precedent, and far
As daylight showed, the rank infection spread.
Those whom Clotharius had, and Ademar,
And the other chiefs, now bones and ashes, led,
Now that the Power, which all dissolves, had freed
Them from their sworn allegiance, talk of flight;
Nay some, the more adventurous, succeed
In flying under cover of the night.
LXX
These facts were heard and noted by the chief,
Who by harsh measures could have all repressed:
But these he abhorred; and, with that firm belief
Which can make mountains move and rivers rest,
To God raised up devotionate appeal,
That he would ope the fountain of his grace.
He clasped his hands, and, rapt with fervent zeal,
To Heaven addressed his words and beaming face:
LXXI
‘Father and Lord! if, in the desert, thou
Didst on thy people sweet refreshment rain,
Or mortal hands didst with the power endow
Hard rocks to rive, and living streams obtain
From the cleft stone, — to us do not deny
Like love; and if unequal be our claim,
Do our deficiency by grace supply,
Nor let us vainly plead who bear thy name.’
LXXII
No lagging course his pious prayers pursue,
Since sprung from humble and so just desire,
But prompt and light through heaven’s crystallin flew,
Like winged birds, unto their God. The Sire
Eternal heard, and on His faithful host
Cast down a tender and compassionate look;
And, grieving for their toils and numbers lost,
In these benignant, friendly accents spoke:
LXXIII
‘Tho’ my loved camp may have suffered till this hour
Painful and perilous adversity,
Though hell with all its secret arts and power,
And though the world against it armèd be,
Now a new state of fortune shall begin,
And turn its grief to joy. Let rain fall down,
Return its own unconquered paladin,
And Egypt’s host arrive — his fame to crown.’
LXXIV
He ceased, and bowed his head; — then shook the sky;
The stars and wandering planets felt the spell;
Trembled the reverent air, the mountains high,
The fields of ocean, and the abyss of hell;
Leftwards forked lightning flashed, and with it pealed
Loud claps of thunder through the lowering skies.
Each flash, each peal, the gladdened army hailed
With joyful clamour and exulting cries.
LXXV
Lo! sudden clouds, and they not earthly born,
Or upwards drawn by virtue of the sun,
But from high heaven — which had asunder torn
Its mighty gates — fall, rushing swiftly down.
Lo! sudden night the light of day enchains
Within its shade, that all around is spread;
Succeeded by such fierce, impetuous rains,
That Siloë now o’erleaps his narrow bed.
LXXVI
As in midsummer’s season, if the shower
So pined, so longed for, from the heavens descend,
In fond impatience of the welcome hour,
By arid streams hoarse chattering ducks attend,
Spreading their pinions to the grateful cool;
None from the clear, refreshing moisture blench,
And, where the gathering freshet forms a pool,
Plunge in its depths their burning thirst to quench;
LXXVII
So these salute with screams of wild delight
The falling rain, that with compassionate hand
God sent His faithful people to requite.
Uncloaked, nay more, unhelmeted, all stand;
This drinks from glass, that with his helmet vies,
These keep their hands immersed beneath the rill;
Some bathe their throbbing temples, some their eyes;
Vessels, for better use, the crafty fill.
LXXVIII
And not alone the human race is glad,
Its previous waste rejoicing to restore;
But the parched earth, that was so faint, so sad,
And in its limbs such gaping fissures bore,
Sucks in the moisture, and unites once more;
And spreads it thence throughout its inmost veins,
Supplying largely each exhausted flower,
Each herb and plant with heaven’s nutritious rains:
LXXIX
Resembling sickly girl whose fever was
By vital draughts and cordial balms subdued,
Whence, disencumbere
d of the fatal cause
That made her limbs its appetising food,
As fresh and as recruited she becomes
As in the season of her greatest charms,
And now, forgetting her past ills, resumes
Her robes, her garlands, and all beauty’s arms.
LXXX
The rains now cease; the sun returns at length,
But with a genial and attempered ray,
As it is wont, replete with virile strength,
At the end of April or the birth of May.
O gentle faith! alone thy virtue can
The air’s death-bearing poison dissipate,
Can change the seasons’ order and their plan,
Thwart the stars’ influence, and discomfit Fate.
CANTO XIV.
I
Now issuing from her mother’s womb, the night
O’er heaven and earth her sable shadows threw;
Bearer she was of zephyrs passing light,
And of big showers of pure and precious dew;
Shaking the humid border of her veil,
She with its drops the grass and flowers impearled;
And flapping his glad wings the gentle gale,
Fanned the soft slumbers of the sleeping world.
II
And all the cares on day attendant, night
Had in refreshing deep oblivion drowned;
But, watching from his throne of endless light,
The world’s great monarch sat, and, turning round,
Fixed on the Christian army’s chief supreme
His sympathetic and propitious eye;
Then sent as harbinger a joyous dream,
His high and sovran will to signify.
III
There stands in the orient a crystallin door,
Near those gold gates from which in full array
The sun comes forth, and which is oped before
Unbarred’s the portal for the rising day;
From it proceed those dreams the Almighty sends
To pure unsullied minds by special grace;
Thence one to pious Godfred now descends,
And spreads its golden pinions in his face.
IV
No vision e’er in wildest dreams disclosed
Such fair, such pleasing picture to the eye,
As this which to their inmost depths exposed
The secrets of the stars and of the sky;
In which, as in a mirror, he can see
In all their splendour their contents displayed;
He seemed transported to a galaxy,
A white serene in golden flames arrayed.
V
And while he did in that high place admire
The expanse, the motion, harmony, and light,
Lo! girt with sunbeams, girt with radiant fire,
That almost blinded him, approached a knight,
Who spoke with voice to which would harsh appear
The sweetest upon earth. ‘Godfred,’ he cries,
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