Orlando Mad.

I.     In mail of black my limbs I girt,             Angelica!     And when the bugles clanged the charge,     The rolling battle's bristling marge     Beheld me a black storm of war      Dash on the foe;     While Durindana glitt'ring far     Made many a foeman mouth the dirt      In bleeding woe: -     For thou didst fire me to the war     'Mid many a Paynim scimetar,             Angelica!              II.     No more the battle fires my blood,             Angelica!     No more gay lists flaunt all their guiles,     And chivalry's charge, and beauty's smiles!     I wander lone the thistly wold      When night-snows fall,     And crispy frosts the wild grass hold.     Great knights go glimmering thro' the wood,      The clarion's call     Wakes War upon his desert wold -     I see the dawning breaking cold,             Angelica!              III.     When Southern winds sowed all the skies,             Angelica!     With bloom-storms of the flowering May;     When all the battle-field was gay     With scented garb of sainted flowers,      I found a stream     Cold as thy heart to paramours!     Deep as the depth of thy blue eyes!      And like a dream     I found a grotto 'mid the flowers,     Cool 'mid the sunlight-sprinkled bowers,             Angelica!              IV.     My casque I dofft to scoop the fount,             Angelica!     With beaded pureness bubbling cool -     It clashed into the purling pool; -     Thy name lay chiseled in the rock,      And underneath -     And then meseemed deep night did block     My steel-chained heart in one huge mount      Foreshadowing death! -     Medoro deep in every rock!     The Moorish name my soul did mock,             Angelica!              V.     No more wild war my veins ensteeps,             Angelica!     No more gay lists flaunt all their guiles! -     White wastes before me miles on miles     With one low, ruby sunset bound -      Thou fleest before,     I follow on: a far off sound     Of oceans gnawing at dark steeps      Swells to a roar. -     'Mid foam thou smil'st: I spurn the ground -     I sink, I swim, waves hiss around -     Oh, could I sink 'neath the profound,      And think of thee no more!