Orlando Mad.
By Madison Julius Cawein
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!