The fierce Argantes, when he now beheld
Himself in his own gushing blood baptized,
In unaccustomed horror sighed and yelled,
With shame discountenanced, and with pain surprised;
And both by rage and suffering agonized,
Raised with his voice his sword aloft to quit
The sharp rebuke; but Tancred, well advised
Of his intent, afresh the' assailant smit,
Where to the nervous arm the shoulder-blade was knit.
As in its Alpine forest the grim bear,
Stung by the hunter's arrow, from its haunts
Flies in the face of all its shafts to dare
Death for the mad revenge no peril daunts;
Just so the' untamed Circassian fares, so pants
For blood, as thus the foe his soul besets,
When shame on shame, and wound on wound he plants; And his revenge his wrath so keenly whets,
That he all danger scorns, and all defence forgets.
Joining with courage keen a valour rash,
And untired strength with unexampled might,
He showers his strokes so fast that the skies flash,
And earth even trembles in her wild affright;
No time has the alarmed Italian knight
To deal a single blow; from such a shower
Scarce can he shield himself, scarce breathe; no sleight Of arms is there to' assure his life an hour
From the man's headstrong haste and brute gigantic power.
Collected in himself, he waits in vain
Till the first fury of the storm be past,
Now lifts his moony targe, now round the plain
Fetches his skilful circles far and fast;
But when he sees the Pagan's fierceness last
Through all delay, his own proud blood takes fire,
And staking all his fortunes on the cast,
He whirls his sword in many a giddy gyre,
Requiting strength with strength, and answering ire with ire.
Judgment and skill are lost in rage, rage gives
Resentment life, fresh force resentment lends;
Where falls the steel, it ever bores or cleaves
Chainplate or mail; plumes shiver, metal bends,
Helms crack, and not a stroke in vain descends;
The ground is strewed with armour hewn asunder,
Armour with blood, with ruby blood sweat blends;
Each smiting sword appears a whirling wonder,
Its flash the lightning's fire, its sullen clang far thunder.
Both gazing nations anxious hung suspended
Upon a spectacle so wild and new;
With fear, with hope the issue they attended,
Some good or ill perpetually in view:
Not the least beck or slightest whisper flew
Midst the vast hosts so lately in commotion;
All nerve alone, all eye, all ear, they grew
Fixt, mute, and soundless as an eve-lulled ocean,
Save what the beating heart struck in its awful motion.
Now tired were both; and both, their spirits spent,
Had surely perished on the field of fight,
Had not dim eve her lengthening shadows sent,
And even of nearest things obscured the sight;
And now on either side in apposite
Array, a reverend herald rose, and sought
From the stern strife to separate each his knight;
This Aridos, Pindoro that, who brought
Of late the' insulter's boast, and terms on which they fought.
One more specimen of the same kind in Canto VII.
But he to ward off harm is not so swift
As that fierce foe is active to assail,
Battered his helm, his shield's already cleft,
And bored and bloody is his plated mail.
Of Tancred's meditated blows, none fail
Of their effect; not one descends in vain,
But keenly wounds; the' apostate's face turns pale,
And his heart writhes at once beneath the pain
Of anger, pride, remose, love, conscience, and disdain.
On one last effort of despairing pride
Resolved at length his dying hopes to set,
He casts the fragment of his shield aside,
Grasps with both hands his sword, uncrimsoned yet,
And closing nimbly with his foe to get
The full command and vantage of the ground,
Quits with so sharp a stroke his heavy debt,
That through both plate and mail the flesh it found,
And in the warriors side impressed a grisly wound.
Next on his spacious brows he struck, the steel
Like an alarm-bell rang; a stroke so dire
And unexpected made the warrior reel
Some paces back, yet left the helm entire.
Red grew the Prince's cheeks for very ire,
agony of shame his teeth he gnashed;
His eyes were like two coals of living fire,
And every glance that through his visor flashed, Blasted the Gascon's pride, both blasted and abashed.
He heard the hissing of the' Avenger's steel
Brandished aloft, its shining he descried,
Already in his breast he seemed to feel
The' accelerated sword his heart divide,
And tremblingly recoiled; the blow fell wide
On an antique pilaster that embossed
The marble bridge,-sparks flashed on every side,
Fragments sprang forth and in the skies were lost,
Whilst to the traitor's heart fear shot its arrowy frost.
Back to the bridge he rushed, in speed reposing
His hopes of life,-behind the' Avenger hung
On his fleet steps, now near, now nearer closing,
One hand already to his shoulder clung;
When lo! from trembling air the lights are wrung;
The cressets disappear, the tapers die ;-
Gone was each star that in blue ether hung;
The yellow moon drew in her horns on high,
And all grew hideous shade beneath the vacant sky. [p. 40-44.] Canto vinth is replete with beauties, but we must confine our extracts to the following stanzas.
"Wounded amidst my slaughtered friends I fell,
And there was left for dead, nor what our foes
Since or sustained or acted can I tell,
An icy torpor all my senses froze;
But when at length my faint eyes did unclose
From dark unconsciousness, the wings of Night
Seemed o'er the shadowy landscape to repose;
Feebly I oped them, and a glimmering light
Far-off, appeared by fits to swim before my sight.
"Albeit no strength had I to recognize
Even nearest objects through the void opaque,
But saw as one whose overwearied eyes,
Nor all asleep, nor openly awake,
Close and unclose without the power to take
Regard or cognizance of things most nigh;
And now my cruel wounds began to ache,
Bit by the keen night-air, thus doomed to lie
Faint on the naked earth, beneath a freezing sky.
"Meanwhile the light drew momently more near,
Till it arrived and rested at my side,
Then gentle whisperings murmured in my ear,--
I raised with pain my eye-lids, and descried
Two tall commanding figures near me glide,
Clothed in long robes, and shaking in the air
Two torches: Son,' I heard them say, 'confide
In him who oft consents the good to spare,
And with his grace forestals the sacrifice of prayer!'
VOL. VIII. No. 4.
"I looked, and as the brilliant fireball rolled,
(Or rather midnight sun) a ray descended,
Which like a glorious line of liquid gold
Ruled by the pencil, straight to earth extended,
And o'er the body, when its flight was ended,
Shook from its skirts so beautiful a flood
Of coloured light, that all its wounds shone splendid,
Each like a ruby ring or golden stud,
And straight the face I knew in its grim mask of blood.
"He lay not prone, but as his high desire
Was ever turned towards the stars, his face,
Ev'n as the martyr's from his couch of fire,
Looked upward still to heaven's blue fields of space.
Closed was his red right hand in strict embrace
Grasping the sword, in act to strike, whose blade
Such ravage wrought; his left with careless grace
In meek devotion on his breast was laid,
As though for peace to God the parting spirit prayed.
"And sudden where the warrior's corse reposed,
A rich sarcophagus was seen to rise,
Which in its heart his relics had enclosed,
I know not how, nor by what rare device;
And briefly blazoned with heraldic dyes
Shone forth the name and virtues of the dead;
From the strange sight my fascinated eyes
I could not lift; each glance fresh marvel bred;
Now I the porphyry scanned, and now the' inscription read. [Canto viii. pp. 381-388.]
The Ixth Canto, which contains the celebrated nightattack of Solyman on the Christian camp, may be illustrated by the following spirited stanzas, and with these we are compelled to close our extracts.
Lo, through the gloom the sentinels he spies,
By the faint twinkling of a casual lamp!
Nor can he longer hope in full surprise
To take the cautious Duke and slumbering Camp.
The sentries soon behold his lion-ramp,
And their alarum sounding loud, bear back,
Warned of his numbers by their sullen tramp;
So that the foremost guards were roused, nor slack
To seize their ready arms, and face the grand attack.
Sure of discovery now, the Arabs wound
Their barbarous horns, and raised their yelling cry, "Lillah il Allah!" to the well-known sound
Neighed all their steeds, earth rang as they rushed by:
Bellowed the mountains, roared the rifted sky,
Roared the deep vales; the' abysses caught the tone,
And answered in drear thunder, whilst on high,
Alecto the blue torch of Phlegethon
Shook toward Zion hill, and signed its legions on.
First rushed the Soldan on the guard, ev'n then
In lax confusion unarranged; less swift
Leaps the grim lion from his bosky den,
Shoots the fierce eagle from her mountain clift;
Floods that pluck up and in their rapid drift
Roll down huts, rocks, and trees; lightnings that blast Strong towers with bolts that leave a burning rift; Earthquakes whose motions make the world aghast, Are symbols weak to paint the power with which he passed.
His sabre never through the grisly shade
Falls but it smites, nor smites without a wound,
Nor wounds but straight it kills,-should more be said,
The truth would like romance or falsehood sound.
Pain he dissembles, or he has not found,
Or scorns the blows which feebler arms imprint;
Yet oft his burganet of steel rings round
Like loud alarm-bells with the lively dint
Of pole-axe, spear, or sword, and sparkles like a flint.
Just as his single sword to flight delivers
This first-raised phalanx, a gigantic deed,
"Like a sea swelled with thousand mountain-rivers,
His rushing Arabs to the charge succeed.
Then the scared Franks flew tent-ward at full speed,
The' audacious Victor following as they fled;
And with them, rapt sublime on his black steed,
Entering the Camp-Gate, he on all sides spread
Havoc, and grief, and pain, loud wailings, rage, and dread.
High on the Soldan's helm, in scales of pearl,
With writhen neck, raised paws, outflying wings,
And tail rolled downward ending in a curl,
A rampant dragon grinned malignant things.
Its lips frothed poison, brandishing three strings
You almost heard it hiss; at every stroke
Heaped on its crest, through all its burning rings
It seemed the monster into motion woke,
Spit forth its spiteful fire, and belched Tartareous smoke.
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