"To ask," he said, "brings worse distress;
I cannot but weep for heaviness.
By Gan the ruin of France is wrought.
In an angel's vision, last night, methought
He wrested forth from my hand the spear:
'Twas he gave Roland to guard the rear.
God! should I lose him, my nephew dear,
Whom I left on a foreign soil behind,
His peer on earth I shall never find!"


LXXI

Karl the Great cannot choose but weep,
For him hath his host compassion deep;
And for Roland, a marvellous boding dread.
It was Gan, the felon, this treason bred;
He hath heathen gifts of silver and gold,
Costly raiment, and silken fold,
Horses and camels, and mules and steeds.--
But lo! King Marsil the mandate speeds,
To his dukes, his counts, and his vassals all,
To each almasour and amiral.
And so, before three suns had set,
Four hundred thousand in muster met.
Through Saragossa the tabors sound;
On the loftiest turret they raise Mahound:
Before him the Pagans bend and pray,
Then mount and fiercely ride away,
Across Cerdagna, by vale and height,