"
So said Hereward; and the Abbot sang--those wondrous staves, where Roland,
left alone of all the Paladins, finds death come on him fast. And on the
Pyrenaean peak, beneath the pine, he lays himself, his "face toward the
ground, and under him his sword and magic horn, that Charles, his lord,
may say, and all his folk, The gentle count, he died a conqueror"; and
then "turns his eyes southward toward Spain, betakes himself to remember
many things; of so many lands which he conquered valiantly; of pleasant
France; of the men of his lineage; of Charlemagne, his lord, who brought
him up. He could not help to weep and sigh, but yet himself he would not
forget. He bewailed his sins, and prayed God's mercy:--True Father, who
ne'er yet didst lie, who raised St. Lazarus from death, and guarded Daniel
from the lions, guard my soul from all perils, for the sins which in my
life I did! His right glove then he offered to God; St. Gabriel took it
from his hand; on his arm the chief bowed down, with joined hands he went
unto his end. God sent down his angel cherubim, and St. Michael, whom men
call 'del peril.' Together with them, St. Gabriel, he came; the soul of
the count they bore to Paradise."
And the Abbot ended, sadly and gently, without that wild "Aoi!" the
war-cry with which he usually ends his staves.
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