And dropt the burden,
weening his Medore
Had done
the same by it, upon his side;
But that poor boy, who
loved his master more,
His shoulders
to the weight alone applied:
Cloridane hurrying with
all haste before,
Deeming
him close behind him or beside;
Who, did he know his
danger, him to save
A thousand deaths, instead
of one, would brave.
* * * * *
The closest path, amid
the forest gray,
To save
himself, pursued the youth forlorn;
But all his schemes
were marred by the delay
Of that
sore weight upon his shoulders borne.
The place he knew not,
and mistook the way,
And hid
himself again in sheltering thorn.
Secure and distant was
his mate, that through
The greenwood shade
with lighter shoulders flew.
So far was Cloridane
advanced before,
He heard
the boy no longer in the wind;
But when he marked the
absence of Medore,
It seemed
as if his heart was left behind.
“Ah! how was I
so negligent,” (the Moor
Exclaimed)
“so far beside myself, and blind,
That, I, Medoro, should
without thee fare,
Nor know when I deserted
thee or where?”
So saying, in the wood
he disappears,
Plunging
into the maze with hurried pace;
And thither, whence
he lately issued, steers,
And, desperate,
of death returns in trace.
Cries and the tread
of steeds this while he hears,
And word
and threat of foeman, as in chase;
Lastly Medoro by his
voice is known,
Disarmed, on foot, ’mid
many horse, alone.
A hundred horsemen who
the youth surround,
Zerbino
leads, and bids his followers seize
The stripling; like
a top the boy turns round
And keeps
him as he can: among the trees,
Behind oak, elm, beech,
ash, he takes his ground,
Nor from
the cherished load his shoulders frees.
Wearied, at length,
the burden he bestowed
Upon the grass, and
stalked about his load.
As in her rocky cavern
the she-bear,
With whom
close warfare Alpine hunters wage,
Uncertain hangs about
her shaggy care,
And growls
in mingled sound of love and rage,
To unsheath her claws,
and blood her tushes bare,
Would natural
hate and wrath the beast engage;
Love softens her, and
bids from strife retire,
And for her offspring
watch, amid her ire.
Cloridane, who to aid
him knows not how,
And with
Medoro willingly would die,
But who would not for
death this being forego,
Until more
foes than one should lifeless lie,
Ambushed, his sharpest
arrow to his bow
Fits, and
directs it with so true an eye,
The feathered weapon
bores a Scotchman’s brain,
And lays the warrior
dead upon the plain.