All my blindness goes! my gaze
Pierces to the deepest rock-cleft,
To the cave of Atta Troll,
And I understand his language!
Strange ’tis how familiar to me
This bear-language now appeareth!
In my dear home have I never
Heard those sounds in earlier days?
CAPUT IV.
Ronceval, thou noble valley!
Whensoe’er I hear thy name,
That blue flower so long departed
O’er my bosom sheds its fragrance!
Then the glitt’ring dream-world rises
Which for thousand years had faded,
And the mighty spirit-eyes
Gaze upon me, till I’m awe-struck!
Rattling sounds awake. There struggle
Saracen and Frankish knight;
As though bleeding and despairing
Ring Orlando’s bugle-notes
In the vale of Ronceval,
Hard beside Orlando’s gap—
Christen’d thus, because the hero,
Seeking how to force a passage,
With his trusty sword Duranda
Struck with such death-dealing fury
On the wall of rock, that plainly
To this day are seen its traces—
There within a gloomy hollow,
Close surrounded by a thicket
Of wild fir-trees, safely hidden,
Lies the cave of Atta Troll.
In the bosom of his fam’ly
Rests he after all the hardships
Of his flight and the distresses
Of his public show and travels.