pass of Roncesvalles, even such a blast may be heard, waking all the echoes and sounding through the lonely hollows of the hills.
Then he made confession, and with a prayer for pardon of his sins and for mercy from the God whose faithful servant and soldier he had been unto his life's end, the soul of Roland passed away.
He breathed his last. God sent his Cherubim,
Saint Raphael, Saint Michel del Peril.
Together with them Gabriel came.—All bring
The soul of Count Rollànd to Paradise.
Aoi."
Charlemagne and his army found him lying thus, and very terrible were the grief and the rage of the Emperor as he looked on him and on the others of his Douzeperes and on the bodies of that army of twenty thousand.
"All the field was with blod ouer roun"—"Many a good swerd was broken ther"—"Many a fadirles child ther was at home."
By the side of Roland, Charlemagne vowed vengeance, but ere he avenged his death he mourned over him with infinite anguish:
"'The Lord have mercy, Roland, on thy soul!
Never again shall our fair France behold
A knight so worthy, till France be no more!
.......
How widowed lies our fair France, and how lone!
How will the realms that I have swayed rebel,
Now thou art taken from my weary age!
So deep my woe that fain would I die too
And join my valiant Peers in Paradise,
While men inter my weary limbs with thine!'"
