XLIX
And ne'er, in succour of the Moorish train,
With sword or lance, the faithful to offend;
And into France, where he to Charlemagne
Would render honour due, forthwith to wend;
Nor Bradamant with idle words again
To cheat, but bring his love to honest end.
A miracle it is that, as he vows,
He swims more lightly and his vigour grows.
L
His vigour grows; unwearied is his mind;
And still his arms from him the billow throw,
This billow followed fast by that behind;
Whereof one lifts him high, one sinks him low.
Rising and falling, vext by wave and wind,
So gains the Child that shore with labour slow;
And where the rocky hill slopes seaward most,
All drenched and dropping, climbs the rugged coast.
LI
All the others that had plunged into the flood
In the end, o'erwhelmed by those wild waters died.
Rogero, as to Providence seemed good,
Mounted the solitary islet's side.
When safe upon the barren rock he stood,
A new alarm the stripling terrified;
To be within those narrow bounds confined,
And die, with hardship and with hunger pined.
LII
Yet he with an unconquered heart, intent
To suffer what the heavens for him ordained,
O'er those hard stones, against that steep ascent,
Towards the top with feet intrepid strained;
And not a hundred yards had gone, when, bent
With years, and with long fast and vigil stained,
He worthy of much worship one espied,
In hermit's weed, descend the mountain's side;
LIII
Who cries, on his approaching him, "Saul, Saul,
Why persecutest thou my faithful seed?"
As whilom said the Saviour to Saint Paul,
When (blessed stroke!) he smote him from his steed.
"Thou thought'st to pass the sea, nor pay withal;
Thought'st to defraud the pilot of his meed.
Thou seest that God has arms to reach and smite,
When farthest off thou deem'st that God of might."
LIV
And he, that holiest anchoret, pursued,
To whom the night foregoing God did send
A vision, as he slumbered, and foreshewed
How, thither by his aid the Child should wend;
Wherein his past and future life, reviewed,
Were seen, as well as his unhappy end;
And sons, and grandsons, and his every heir,
Fully revealed to that good hermit were.
LV
That anchoret pursues, and does upbraid
Rogero first, and comforts finally:
Upbraideth him, because he had delaid
Beneath that easy yoke to bend the knee;
And what he should have done, when whilom prayed
And called of Christ — then uncompelled and free —
Had done with little grace; nor turned to God
Until he saw him threatening with the rod.
LVI
Then comforts him — that Christ aye heaven allows
To them, that late or early heaven desire;
And all those labourers of the Gospel shows,
Paid by the vineyard's lord with equal hire.
With charity and warm devotion glows,
And him instructs the venerable sire,
As toward the rocky cell where he resides
He with weak steps and slow Rogero guides.
LVII
Above that hallowed cell, on the hill's brow,
A little church receives the rising day;
Commodious is the fane and fair enow;
Thence to the beach descends a thicket gray,
Where fertile and fruit-bearing palm-trees blow,
Myrtle, and lowly juniper, and bay,
Evermore threaded by a limpid fountain,
Which falls with ceaseless murmur from the mountain.
LVIII
'Twas well nigh forty years, since on that stone
The goodly friar had fixed his quiet seat;
Which, there to live a holy life, alone,
For him the Saviour chose, as harbourage meet.
Pure water was his drink, and, plucked from one,
Or the other plant, wild berries were his meat;
And hearty and robust, of ailments clear,
The holy man had reached his eightieth year.