es will close.

I forgive thee--now away--nay, do not touch me! I am wan--
Sick with suffering--mad with anguish--Go!" The penitent man is gone.
--Once again he lies alone, save his agony, alone;
Then they come and pile upon him heavier weights of iron and stone.

Still more pallid, at the even, Roland in his anguish lay,
Wrestling, for his soul was strong, with his body's slow decay;
And the sweat upon his forehead stood and rolled and fell like rain,
Cold, while pain and fire and fever battled in his heart and brain.

Now and then his senses wandered; now again his mind was calm,
And he wrung from out his suffering penitential draughts of balm;
Then again his senses left him, and he lay in phrenzy there,
Talking wildly in his madness with the dim, impalpable air.

Now, he saw the Lady Gwineth wandering in her maiden joy;
Now, he viewed her in her chamber frolic with her baby boy;
Now, he saw her sadly lying, all her bosom bathed with blood;
And beheld himself as o'er her on that fatal night he stood.

Was he dreaming? through his dungeon stole a pale purpureal light,
Flowing round him, floating round him, making daylight of its night;
In its midst, his gentle Gwineth, while around her brow there flowed,
Fluttering flame, a golden halo! that with heavenly glory glowed.

Did he hear her? Was it real? With an angel's voice she spoke:
How the words, like flakes of music, silver music! sweetly broke,
Round and round him! how they floated, ringing in his ravished ears,
Like the notes of Memnon's lyre, or chantings from the distant spheres!

"Coming, Roland, from that heaven where, though clad with light, I sigh
And languish for the softer lustre of thy gentle loving eye,
I await thee, singing, singing hymns to cheer thy dying hour
That the Cherubim sang in Eden when it first arose in flower.

Hearken! how my notes are mingling--one by one, and two by two,
Dropping on thy brain as falls on fading roses freshening dew;
Three by three, they upward circle: thou hast heard them in thy dreams,
When I came, a missioned spirit, from the four eternal streams.

I can see them, though thine eyes can only compass earthly vision:
Soon, O, Roland! soon, O, Roland! thou shalt see with eyes elysian:
Then the notes that now thou hearest thou shalt see, as on they flow,--
Angels that are rarest air! and view them through their dances go."

Still, entranced, the sufferer listened; and it seemed as from his pain
Sweeter music yet wa