ORLANDO
SUGGESTED BY ARIOSTO'S “ORLANDO FURIOSO”
I
When southern winds sowed woods and skies,
Angelica!
With bloom-storms of the flowering May;
When hill and battle-field were gay
With peace and purity of flowers,
I sat to dream
Beside a stream amid the bowers,
Clear as the deeps of thy blue eyes:
And near the stream
I saw a grotto banked with flowers,
From which the streamlet fell in showers,
Cool-sparkling through the sunlit bowers,
Angelica!
II
My casque I dofft to scoop the fount,
Angelica!
With liquid pureness bubbling cool
It rose—then clashed into the pool . . .
Thy name I saw, hewn in the rock!
And under it . . .
Ah no! I dreamed! my eyes did mock
My senses! . . . Then I seemed to count,
All fire-lit,
The letters! deep, carved in the rock!
Medoro carved in every rock!—
My brain went round like some wild clock,
Angelica!
III
O treachery! O lust of blood!
Angelica!
That one so fair should be so vile!
No more for me again shall smile
The brows of Beauty! As of old,
With clarion call,
No more shall Battle make me bold!
Or Chivalry fire my soul! . . . The wood,—
Away from all,
From love and lust,—shall house and hold
My misery! . . . The dawn breaks cold!
And I lie naked on the wold,
Angelica!
