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THE DEATH OF ROLAND, by                    
First Line: When I was young -- ah, france was paradise
Last Line: But, sooth, this race of aquitaine is worse!
Subject(s): Death; France; Grief; Hugh Capet (938-996); Roland; Dead, The; Sorrow; Sadness


WHEN I was young. . . . Ah, France was paradise
And, blessed of God, she lit creation's eyes,
For, manifest in thought and deed and word,
His thunder rolled from her and all men heard.
Ye virgin knights! Yea, virgin -- let that be;
All France is swollen with your leprosy,
That, seeing you, each veteran's bosom bleeds.
Let God be witness: ye are Glory's weeds!

Give ear! Great Karl was coming back from Spain,
And on a height that did to heaven attain
One morn his nephew, Roland, pitched his tent,
Whereat Black Gannelon, soul-pestilent,
Approached his liege.
"My son-in-law," he said,
"Thy jewel, Roland, famed as warriors dead,
Were sure and stable buttress' gainst the brood
Of impious Paynims, shouldst thou be pursued.
If he command, the tail shall lack no sting."
Now Roland, seeing this counsel moved the King,
Flashed ire on Gannelon, yet unafraid
Said: "Be it so! My Lord shall be obeyed.

"O Kinsman, bid the vanguard now advance.
He loses nought who stands for golden France,
And mule nor steed our foes shall lead away
Save, by my hilt! with blows and blood they pay."
Full soon he saw great Karl in sorrow pass,
His snow-white beard adown his bright cuirass
And forth the armies streamed from Roncevaux.
Thus, in the blaze of chivalry we go
While Roland wards our going leagues behind.

About the pitchy pines the gorges wind;
The walls are high that hem the deep ravine
And dense the heaped dark above the green.

Through dust and dearth we make the last plateau.

Karl o'er his dusky mantle bending low
Weeps long for Roland. Then, all wrought, he prays:
"Lord God, forfend from him the bolt that slays!
Blood-famished are his foes and, fain for strife,
Thy saints and angels shall not shield his life.
Spare him to me while he his sword can draw
Against my foes and men that mock Thy law!"
With eyes bescaled by grief we made our way.

As curtain had been lifted, 'neath the spray
Of floating vapours Gascony flared high.

And with this prospect he who said good-bye
To hearth and home, affianced maid or spouse,
Recalling these, swept hand across his brows
And then anon, as longing warmed his cheek,
Pressed spur and leaned above his saddle's peak
And so went down.
O Franks, 'yond Gascony
All France lies gleaming.
Then, as storm at sea,
Alarums smote the ears of man and mare,
And booming down the gorges came the blare
Of savage clamours sped down windy tracts,
Swoln as the roar of myriad cataracts
-- A noise that filled with strife the dumb defiles
And shrieked its agony down lonely aisles.
Our hearts stood still; our smitten eyes stared blind.
The charger shook like hare or stricken hind,
And mule and palfrey snuffed the earth, afraid.
Poised were the spears, unsheathed the dirk and blade;
And down the lines the fluttering pennants flared
On lance and sword, on plumes and lovelocks bared,
On steel that loosed its lightnings, iron that gleamed,
On burnished greaves, on flanks and mouths that steamed,
On halberts mailed and verdant helms of gold,
Boss, spur and shield, escutcheons gilt-enscrolled,
Swirled as in torrent which the whirlpool drew
With housings flowered white and red and blue.
Each saw his fellow's visage through his tears.

The clangour ebbs and volleys, soars and veers
Like tinkling of the bell of harried fawn.
Karl rises in his stirrups, white and thrawn,
And scans obscurity with eyes aghast.

"No horn save his would have so long a blast.
Scourge back, my barons. Bate nor blood nor breath
-- Such knights as Roland only call in death!"

And wild the trumpets rang from rank to rank.
Vouchsafed despair, the waiting concourse drank
The wine of madness. Once again the cry
Of Olifant in gusts came down the sky.

Tears fringed the eyes of all save Gannelon
-- Time shall not spawn a deadlier scorpion.

Karl, agonised and wroth, his army leads.
We ride as if the whirlwinds were our steeds,
Sped back to Roncevaux through rocky strait,
Defile and gorge as torrent loosed in spate,
Hurled, so 'twould seem, by Fate and not the will
As met with avalanche of mighty hill.
In huddled rout the shuddering landscape fled
And still great Karl, as granite pillar, led.

"On! On!" he cried; "let no one lag behind.
On, though the pines about the gorges wind;
Though walls are high that hem the deep ravine
And dense the heaped dark above the green."

The Emperor stays. Once more we hear the horn,
But fainter now, in dying echoes borne.

"Be buckler to his breast, Lord God," cried Karl.
"Sound, trumpeters!" Wide swelled the trumpets' snarl,
And through the noise we moved as through a mist.
"Louder!" he cried. "Against his doom persist.
Let strength be beggared, Barons. Roland dies;
It is his soul that through the welkin sighs."
His trembling fingers tore his flowing beard
And kindled by that King renowned, revered,
Knight, squire, and reeve pressed on with rowels red.

O mountain scaled! O waste discomfited!

The sun's last gleam the sky incarnadines,
Deepening the vales and heightening the pines.

Fain still we ride and then ... Lo, Roncevaux!
We ride no more, but, sorrowful and slow,
Behind the King into the vale descend.
"Roland," he cries. "O thou, my more than friend,
Speak, I shall hear."

No sound, no sigh, no moan,
But everywhere the dead in silence strown,
The bloody harvest of one summer day
All purpurate on rock, on bush and spray;
And if we see, it is our tears have sight,
For blood wells up to swell the temples tight
And rend our breasts as wine-skins over-filled.

Low lies the mount that none shall e'er rebuild;
Its massive bulk chokes up the stifling vale,
Glutting the grove, the copse, the scented dale,
And heaped about the spears of serried pines.
Yea, spilt beside the rocks in crimson lines
Upon the grass lie twice ten thousand knights,
Whose every breast the rose of Death bedights.
In twilight sinks the flower of lordly names;
From pool and lake the phosphor life-blood flames.

"Dismount, my Lords," said Karl, "for I, in sooth,
In lonely quest would seek this lovely youth
Whose equity and valour were my vaunt.
Loved Kinsman, whom hell's terrors could not daunt,
With thee my glory fades and sinks to dust.
Within thy heart are sealed my strength and trust,
And hateful now my dreams before me rise.
God plant thee with the flowers of paradise.
Strange! Yet at Aix ... how well do I recall
His jocund voice: 'Liege, should I chance to fall
On foreign soil, look for me 'yond the rest
And find me with the death-wound in my breast
And face that taunts the Paynims. So, apart
E'en Death shall bring me victory.' O Heart!"

And thereupon he left us. Through the gloam,
A pebble's cast away, his charger clomb
The mountain's face; no let might stay him now;
And limned upon the summit's marble brow,
Beside a twisted pine, in verdure lain,
Embosomed by the grass, slept Roland, slain,
Couched on his sword and Olifant, his horn,
Hands joined upon his breast, his visage torn
Yet turned upon the Paynims and inclined
To distant Spain, as once his soul divined.

Karl leaps to earth and foots the dewy lawn.
Stood all at gaze, yet were his heart withdrawn
From all save Roland. Kissing him, eftsoon
Grief blinds his eyes -- he falls to earth aswoon.

Enough! My breast were sacked of breath, I ween,
Should I say more. Then I was scarce fifteen;
And, with Life's glory sunk behind the crags,
I shed my mail and donned a beggar's rags
And thus for sixty years on divers strands
Unceasingly I sang in many lands
Of Karl, the Golden Heart, and Roland's death
And of the Franks, whom God remembereth.
Now, filled with memories which sleep defy,
I wait here in the riven rock to die.

Thus have I lived; and thus in age I creep.
Young Knight, thou seest me, and can'st thou keep
Thy heart in silence? God, why must the old
Still loiter here to be by youth cajoled,
Neglected and reviled, held up to scorn
-- Lean, sightless wights, bent, beggared and forlorn?
Yet Christ be blessed, Who brought thee here to know
Of Roland and the fight of Roncevaux.
Hark well, young King, in keep of Karl installed.
Know this for truth: by God thou hast been called
To lead the Franks against the accursed race
Of Aquitaine, who still His cross debase.
Their sons are vipers' efts that spit at France
And spoil the field of Karl's inheritance.
Our noblest knights are lapped in alien clay.
All naught the steel, the arms, the bright array
-- The flower of chivalry at eve lay dead,
By sly and naked churls discomfited
They fell o'erwhelmed by veiled and swift attack
Of herdsman shorn and vile demoniac.
Fleet runners who, when gone, bide ever near
And track, unseen, the unwary cavalier
With javelins and stones and put to flight
Our armies girt with muniments of might.
Jews, Saracens, and Paynims ye may curse,
But, sooth, this race of Aquitaine is worse!





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