VI.
The Christian people then God’s placid front
Must have disturbed with their excesses sore;
Since them with slaughter, rape, and rapine hunt,
Through all their quarters, plundering Turk and Moor:
But the unsparing rage of Rodomont
Proves worse than all the ills endured before.
I said that Charlemagne had made repair
In search of him towards the city square.
VII.
Charles, by the way, his people’s butchery
Beholds—burnt palaces and ruined fanes—
And sees large portion of the city lie
In unexampled wreck.—“Ye coward trains,
“Whither in heartless panic would ye fly?
“Will none his loss contemplate? what remains
“To you,—what place of refuge, say, is left,
“If this from you so shamefully be reft?
VIII.
“Then shall one man alone, a prisoned foe,
“Who cannot scale the walls which round him spread,
“Unscaithed, unquestioned, from your city go,
“When all are by his vengeful arm laid dead?”
Thus Charlemagne, whose veins with anger glow,
And shame, too strong to brook, in fury said;
And to the spacious square made good his way,
Where he beheld the foe his people slay.
