Their pleasant road through glades and forests lay
Of shadowy plane rows, and the stately beech,
Beneath whose foliage winds her rapid way
Isére, in haste her wedded Rhone to reach.
Sweet birds from every thicket caroll'd gay,
In melody surpassing human speech;

Soft breezes fann'd the air, and curl'd the stream,
Melting the soul in love's enchanted dream.

I cannot say what amorous thoughts possest
The younger Paladin, as on he rode ;
But, ever and anon, his steed he prest
With idle spur; then carelessly bestrode,
The reins let loose, and every limb at rest,
Just as his active spirits ebb'd and flow'd :
Had he in love been constant as in fight,
Not all the world could boast a worthier knight.

Orlando's heart the soft attemper'd air
To different thoughts of graver hue inclined ;
No vain delusive fires enkindled there,
But breathed a solemn stillness o'er his mind,
(That mood the gifted sage is said to share
When inspiration leaves the sense behind,)
Recalling every sigh, and sad farewel,
And boding tear of his loved Aldabelle.

From the deep trance, that until even tide
Still held the knights so diversely enthrall'd,
First Oliver awoke, and sportive cried,
"How fares my brother? has his mind recall'd
Some fearful scene by Merlin prophesied ?
Or, by Montalban's raven voice appall❜d (7),
Thinks he the dreams of female terror true,
And half regrets the glory we pursue?

"My temper suits not with the gloomy mood
Gender'd by woman's tear and beadsman's groan ?
It ever whispers, Seize the present good,
And live in hope, till hope and life are flown.
E'en now, to say thee sooth, I inly brood
On fancied pleasures near the Moorish throne ;-
Proud lordships and embattled towers for thee,
For me, high dames, and sports and minstrelsy.

"Then, with the earliest breeze of balmy morn,
The silent Pyrenees shall start to hear
The mountain music of my echoing horn;
And by my side, dispell'd each maiden fear,
The Moorish nymph, to gentler pastimes born,
Shall curb the steed and dart the slender spear,
While her dark lover, following far behind,
May sigh his jealous sorrows to the wind.-

"She heeds not his rebuke; but, when the hour
Of feast and revelry begins its reign,

My huntress fair shall sparkling nectar pour
For me, for me awake the amorous strain.-
The banquet's past; and o'er the myrtle bower
Night spreads her veil,—the fairest bower in Spain;-
I know not, but a Christian knight, 'tis said,
May haply win the love of Moorish maid.”

Thus as he spake, he smiled in merry guise,
And Clermont's lord with temperate smile return'd,
"Fair cousin, while you speak, our elders wise
May wish, full fain, their gravest lore unlearn'd,
And ladies, chaste as ice, whose fixed eyes
Ne'er stray'd from fancy, nor with passion burn'd,
By heaving bosom and warm cheek confess
Some hidden sense of undream'd blessedness.

"Me would it ill beseem to knit my brow
When amorous knights discourse of ladies gay,
Or, like a churchman, mutter penance vow
When laughing minstrels chaunt the merry lay;
The gibing Paladins would ask, Where now
Is he who loved the Princess of Cathay,
Orlando,-whom Angelica the vain

Robb'd of his wits beside the banks of Seine (8) ?

"And, trust me, Oliver, no dismal tale
Of dark foreboding, portent dire and strange,
Of shrieking night bird, or of phantom pale,
Can the high purpose of my soul derange:
Though o'er my mind be cast a transient veil,
As passing clouds the summer skies may change,
No fears the champion of the Cross can move,
Whose confidence is firm in heavenly love."

"Well I believe," return'd that younger knight,
The unshaken firmness of Orlando's soul:
For when nor prospect of unequal fight,
Nor tempest rattling fierce from pole to pole
Had ever power to make thee blench with fright,
Oh how should peace array'd in gorgeous stole,
The tributary realm and proffer'd throne,
But fill thy breast with joy and pride alone?"

Thus in free converse pass'd the sultry hours;
Till eve descending over hill and vale
With dewy fingers closed the flaunting flowers:
Now fresher perfumes load each passing gale,
And sweet birds nestle in their summer bowers,
And tunes her throat the wakeful nightingale.
The wandering knights some friendly shelter claim
With needful sleep to soothe the o'erwearied frame,

Anselm, the generous chief of Arli's race (),
It chanced some knightly purpose thither led,
At the same hour their frugal board to grace,
And share the lord of Clermont's proffer'd bed.-
So fared the knights of old ;-no lack of space
To noble spirits in the narrowest shed,
While the wide world was all too small to hold
The guardian, and the plunderer, of the fold.

In mutual faith, both ask'd, and both declared
Their different journey's end.-How Charles had sent
To king Marsilius messengers prepared

To treat, with words of fair arbitrement,

That both by Moor and Christian might be shared
Once more the joys of peaceable content;

How Poictiers' lord the gracious olive bore,
And spread the joyful news from shore to shore,

Orlando told: nor fail'd he to declare
That Saragossa's prince had fixt the day
Whereon to Roncesvaux he would repair
In pomp of peace, with suitable array,
To meet Anglante's valiant lord, and there
Into his hands with honour reconvey

The realms erst won by conquering Charlemain
From wild Sobrarbe to Ebro's fertile plain (1).—