Jerusalem Delivered - Book 04 - part 04
XLIX
'Three times the shape of my dear mother came,
Pale, sad, dismayed, to warn me in my,
Alas, how far from the same
Whose eyes shone erst like Titan's glorious beam:
`Daughter,' she says, `fly, fly, behold thy dame
Foreshows the treasons of thy wretched eame,
Who poison gainst thy harmless life provides:'
This said, to shapeless air unseen she glides.
L
'But what avail high walls or bulwarks strong,
Where fainting cowards have the piece to guard?
My sex too weak, mine age was all to young,
To undertake a work so hard,
To wander wild the desert woods among,
A banished maid, of wonted ease debarred,
So grievous seemed, that liefer were my death,
And there to expire where first I drew my breath.
LI
'I deadly evil if long I stayed,
And yet to fly had neither will nor power,
Nor durst my heart declare it waxed afraid,
Lest so I hasten might my dying hour:
Thus restless waited I, maid,
What hand should first pluck up my springing flower,
Even as the wretch condemned to lose his life
Awaits the falling of the murdering knife.
LII
'In these extremes, for so my fortune would
Perchance preserve me to my further ill,
One of my father's servants old,
That for his bore his child will,
With store of tears this treason gan unfold,
And said; my guardian would his pupil kill,
And that, if promise made be kept,
Should give me poison dire ere next I slept.
LIII
'And further told me, if I wished to live,
I must convey by secret flight,
And offered then all succours he could give
To aid his mistress, banished from her right.
[...] Read more
poem by Torquato Tasso
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
