The shepherd’s home was good enough and neat,
    A little shady cottage in a dell
  The man had just rebuilt it all complete,
    With room to spare, in case more births befell. 
  There with such knowledge did the lady treat
    Her handsome patient, that he soon grew well;
  But not before she had, on her own part,
  A secret wound much greater in her heart.

  Much greater was the wound, and deeper far,
    Which the sweet arrow made in her heart’s strings;
  ’Twas from Medoro’s lovely eyes and hair;
    ’Twas from the naked archer with the wings. 
  She feels it now; she feels, and yet can bear
    Another’s less than her own sufferings. 
  She thinks not of herself:  she thinks alone
  How to cure him by whom she is undone.

  The more his wound recovers and gets ease,
    Her own grows worse, and widens day by day. 
  The youth gets well; the lady languishes,
    Now warm, now cold, as fitful fevers play. 
  His beauty heightens, like the flowering trees;
    She, miserable creature, melts away
  Like the weak snow, which some warm sun has found
  Fall’n, out of season, on a rising ground.

  And must she speak at last, rather than die? 
    And must she plead, without another’s aid? 
  She must, she must:  the vital moments fly
    She lives—­she dies, a passion-wasted maid. 
  At length she bursts all ties of modesty: 
    Her tongue explains her eyes; the words are said
  And she asks pity, underneath that blow
  Which he, perhaps, that gave it did not know.

  O County Orlando!  O King Sacripant! 
    That fame of yours, say, what avails it ye? 
  That lofty honour, those great deeds ye vaunt,—­
    Say, what’s their value with the lovely she
  Shew me—­recall to memory (for I can’t)—­
    Shew me, I beg, one single courtesy
  That ever she vouchsafed ye, far or near,
  For all you’ve done and have endured for her.

  And you, if you could come to life again,
    O Agrican, how hard ’twould seem to you,
  Whose love was met by nothing but disdain,
    And vile repulses, shocking to go through! 
  O Ferragus!  O thousands, who, in vain,
    Did all that loving and great hearts could do,
  How would ye feel, to see, with all her charms,
  This thankless creature in a stripling’s arms?

  The young Medoro had the gathering
    Of the world’s rose, the rose untouch’d before;
  For never, since that garden blush’d with spring,
    Had human being dared to touch the door. 
  To sanction it—­to consecrate the thing—­
    The priest was called to read the service o’er,
  (For without marriage what can come but strife?)
  And the bride-mother was the shepherd’s wife.

  All was perform’d, in short, that could be so
    In such a place, to make the nuptials good;
  Nor did the happy pair think fit to go,
    But spent the month and more within the wood. 
  The lady to the stripling seemed to grow. 
    His step her step, his eyes her eyes pursued;
  Nor did her love lose any of its zest,
  Though she was always hanging on his breast.