Vainement les enfers s'armèrent; vainement
Les peuples de l'Asie aux Africains s'unirent:
Favorisé du Ciel, sous ses drapeaux sacrés,
Vainqueur, il ramena ses compagnons fidèles.
Divine Muse! ô toi dont le front radieux
Ne ceint point sur le Pinde un laurier périssable,
Mais qui, parmi les chœurs des habitants du Ciel,
Chantes, le front orné d'étoiles immortelles,
Viens, inspire à mon sein tes célestes ardeurs;
Fais briller dans mes vers tes clartés, et pardonne
Si, parant quelquefois l'austère vérité,
Je mêle à tes attraits des grâces étrangères.
I sing the pious arms and Chief, who freed
The Sepulchre of Christ from thrall profane:
Much did he toil in thought, and much in deed;
Much in the glorious enterprise sustain;
And Hell in vain opposed him; and in vain
Afric and Asia to the rescue pour'd
Their mingled tribes;—Heaven recompensed his pain,
And from all fruitless sallies of the sword,
True to the Red-Cross flag his wandering friends restored.
O thou, the Muse, that not with fading palms
Circlest thy brows on Pindus, but among
The Angels warbling their celestial psalms,
Hast for the coronal a golden throng
Of everlasting stars! make thou my song
Lucid and pure; breathe thou the flame divine
Into my bosom; and forgive the wrong,
If with grave truth light fiction I combine,
And sometimes grace my page with other flowers than thine!
Wiffen.
Canto l'armi pietose, e'l Capitano
Che'l gran sepolcro liberò di Christo:
Molto egli oprò col senno e con la mano;
Molto soffri nel glorioso acquisto:
E invano l'Inferno a lui s'oppose, e invano
S'armò d'Asia, e dì Libia il popol misto;
Chè il Ciel diè favore, e sotto ai santi
Segni ridusse i suoi compagni erranti.
