XXVII.
Though flames demolish all things far and wide,
This ill appears his furious hate to slake:
Where’er the paynim has his hands applied,
He tumbles down a roof at every shake.
My lord, believe, you never yet espied
Bombard in Padua, of so large a make,
That it could rend from wall of battered town
What, at a single pull, the king plucked down.
XXVIII.
While the accursed man, amid the rout,
So warred with fire and sword, if at his post,
King Agramant had prest it from without,
The ample city had that day been lost.
But he was hindered by the warrior stout,
Who came from England with the advancing host,
Composed of English and of Scotch allied,
With Silence and the Angel for their guide.
XXIX.
It was God’s will, that while through town and tower
The furious Rodomont such ruin spread,
Thither arrived Rinaldo, Clermont’s flower.
Three leagues above, he o’er the river’s bed
Had cast a bridge; from whence his English power
To the left-hand by crooked ways he led;
That, meaning to assail the barbarous foes,
The stream no obstacle might interpose.
