The Count Rolland feels now his end approach. Against a pointed rock, and facing Spain, He lies. Three times he beats his breast, and says: "Mea culpa! Oh, my God, may through thy grace, Be pardoned all my sins, or great or small, Until this hour committed since my birth!" Then his right glove he offers up to God, And toward him angels from high Heav'n descend. Aoi. CLXXVIII. Beneath a pine Rolland doth lie, and looks Toward Spain--He broods on many things of yore: On all the lands he conquered, on sweet France, On all his kinsmen, on great Carle his lord Who nurtured him;--he sighs--nor can restrain His tears, but can not yet himself forget; Recalls his sins, and for the grace of God He prays:--"Our Father, never yet untrue, Who Saint-Lazare raised from the dead, and saved Thy Daniel from the lions' claws--Oh, free My soul from peril, from my whole life's sins!" His right hand glove he offered up to God; Saint Gabriel took the glove.--With head reclined Upon his arm, with hands devoutly joined He breathed his last. God sent his Cherubim, Saint-Raphael, _Saint Michiel del Peril_. Together with them Gabriel came.--All bring The soul of Count Rolland to Paradise.... Aoi. THE CHASTISEMENT OF THE SARACENS. CLXXIX. Rolland is dead: God has his soul in heaven. To Ronceval the Emperor has come. There, neither road nor any path is seen, Nor vacant space, nor ell, nor foot of land That mounds of mangled bodies cover not, Pagans or French.--The Emperor exclaims: "Fair nephew, where art thou? The Archbishop, where? And Olivier, alas, where are they all? Gerin, Gerier, the two companions, where Are they? And where is Otes and Berengier, Ives and Ivoire both to my heart so dear? The Gascuin Engelier, Sansun the Duke, Anseis the rash, Gerard de Roussillon The old, and my twelve Peers I left behind, What fate is theirs?"--What boots it? None replies.-- "God," cries the King, "what grief is mine to think I stood not here the battle to begin." He tears his beard with anger; all his knights And barons weep great tears; dizzy with woe And swooning, twenty thousand fall to earth. Duke Naimes feels pity overflow his heart. Aoi. CLXXX.