Orlando Mad

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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!

© Madison Julius Cawein