e 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?