Chapter 4

When the gathering gloom of night in swarthy shadows floated down On the mountain and the forest, Roland saw the distant town: O'er its walls, and round its towers, a dim and sickly lustre lay. Like the gray and ghostly haze that heraldeth the dawning day.

While, behind those walls and turrets, standing blackly in her light, Full and large the lurid moon rose ghastily upon the night; Shrouded in a cloud of crimson, slowly, slowly as he came Rising higher, higher, higher, till the east was full of flame.

As his guards approached the gates--did she sink or did they rise? Behind the black gigantic towers the planet vanished from his eyes. All without was solemn blackness, but within was drearier dark, Save when from some grim old building stole a taper's trembling spark.

Slowly through the lengthy streets, between old houses, rising high, Over which, dark, dusk, sepulchral, bent the purple pall-like sky, Through the town they bore him on, until frowningly, at last, Rose the castle-walls before them, huge and massy, broad and vast.

With a last look on the heavens, the knight rode on beneath the gate: Stepping from his steed he bowed him, stately, to his fearful fate: On his limbs they fastened fetters, cold! how cold! their chillness ran Freezing through his blood, the spirit of the stern, unconquered man.

Through a gallery they led him to a dark and dismal cell. Where they left him. Sad and solemn, heavy, awful as a knell, Seemed the fading of their footsteps, as he heard them slowly glide Through the long and vaulted corridor till their very echo died.

Days went by--days dark with anguish, for his conscience, like a spur, Drove him o'er the wastes of memory which were never black before; Weeks slid by, and months--such months! such bitter months of pungent pain, That their very hours seemed serpents gnawing at his heart and brain.

Next they led him forth to trial: like a child he bowed and went, With his once black hair like snow, and his stalwart form so bent, And his beard so long and white, and his cheek so thin and wan, Even his very keepers thought it was a ghost they gazed upon!

When before his ermined judges, stately, silent, Roland came, Over his cheek there flashed and faded, suddenly, a flash of flame: Like a falling star it faded: lofty and erect he turned, With the feeling that aroused it under his iron Will inurned.

"Roland, Baron Grey!" the crier, in the ancient Latin tongue, Which, like some old bell in tolling, through the vaulted building rung:-- Cold and stern the prisoner answered--cold and stern--devoid of fear-- Looking haughtily around him:--"Roland, Baron Grey, is here!"

Muttering the solemn charge, they bade him answer; but he stood Cold, and calm, and motionless, as though he were nor flesh nor blood, But, rather, all a bronzed statue of the proud, primeval time-- In his silence self-devoted--in his very guilt sublime.

Thrice they prayed him: while he listened, not a quiver on his brow, Not the movement of a hair upon his head or beard of snow, Not the motion of a lip, nor even the flutter of an eye, Betokening that he even heard them--he was there alone to die.

In the distant, dreary years, so run the legends even now-- Misty legends on whose summits slumber centuries of snow-- Lofty legends round whose summits clouds have lain for solemn ages-- Legends penned with iron pens in blood by Draco-minded sages--

It was written, they should bear him to a dungeon under ground, Far beneath the castle moat, where came no single human sound, And unto the earth should chain him, naked, on the icy ground-- Naked, like the sage Prometheus, on the mountain's summit bound.

Water--there was none for him, save that which flowed in the castle moat, On whose green and slimy surface newts and mosses loved to float-- Bread--a crust a day--so, starving, freezing, there the Doomed was spread, Pressed with weights of stone and iron till he answered or was dead.

Did he answer guiltless, lo! the trial; guilty, lo! the axe; Death before the grinning thousand! worse than were a myriad racks! While the trial were an evil quite as grievous, quite as great, For the verdict of his peers would rend from him his proud estate:

But, if he died silent, then his lands would pass in quiet down To bless his boy, his innocent boy, and not escheat unto the crown: So he chose the darksome dungeon, rather there to die alone Than by cowardly fear to steal the birthright of his orphan son.

But, beside this, came the thought that, by this penance he might win Forgiveness from offended Heaven for his now-repented sin. "Noble Roland," quoth his judges, "answer, ere it be too late; Heavy, else, must be our judgment--heavier thine awful fate."

Then arose the ghostly knight, with his spectral eyes aflame, While a more than mortal vigor coursed and circled through his frame; And he gazed upon them smiling, and like hollow thunder broke His accents on the swarthy silence:--thus and so the chieftain spoke:

"Lords! I answer not. If guilty, God will judge my sinful soul: For my body--that is yours! I yield it to your stern control. Would you have me--me, a warrior, like a coward plead for life? Death and I are old acquaintance! I have met him in the strife--

"I have met him when the air was swooning with a ghastly fear; When the Moslem swept before us, driven like a herd of deer; When our voices mocked the thunder, shouting 'England and Saint George!' And the lightning of our falchions fell like flashes from a forge!

"There, amid the clash and clang of sword and shield, I strove with Death-- That I conquered, ye may see; and now I yield to him my breath Where there is no rescue, yield! and, as one would call a bride, So I bid the grisly monarch smilingly unto my side.

"Shall I yield my broad estates, my castles and my manor lands, To the harpies of the law, to hold them with unhallowed hands? Shall I send my youthful heir forth with a stain upon his crest? No! my eaglet yet shall reign an eagle in his parent nest.

"Lords and judges, I have done: no further words shall pass my lips, Save prayers to Heaven, that my soul may, sun-like, rise from death's eclipse." Silently, he braved them still; and, sighing, sad, and full of gloom, His judges sent him forth to struggle with the sharp and lingering doom.

Did he tremble at their sentence? Not a muscle quivered, not A sign to mark he heard, save on his cheek one purple spot: Statelier yet than ever, firmer, with a long triumphant breath, Roland, smiling on his judges, sternly walked to certain death.