The Franks take terrible vengeance on the Moors who survive. Then they bury their dead comrades and all return to France. Stanza 225. --From Spain the Emperor made retreat, To Aix in France, his kingly seat; And thither, to his halls, there came, Alda, the fair and gentle dame. "Where is my Roland, sire," she cried, "Who vowed to take me for his bride? O'er Karl the flood of sorrow swept; He tore his beard and loud he wept. "Dear Sister, gentle friend," he said, "Thou seekest one who lieth dead: I plight to thee my son instead,-- Louis, who lord of my realm shall be." "Strange," she said, "this seems to me. God and his angels forbid that I Should live on earth if Poland die." Pale grow her cheek--she sank amain, Down at the feet of Carlemaine. So died she. God receive her soul! The Franks bewail her in grief and dole. Stanza 226.-- So to her death went Alda fair. The king but deemed she fainted there. While dropped his tears of pity warm, He took her hands and raised her form. Upon his shoulder drooped her head, And Karl was ware that she was dead. When thus he saw that life was o'er, He summoned noble ladies four. Within a cloister was she borne; They watched beside her until morn; Beneath a shrine her limbs were laid; Such honour Karl to Alda paid. ROMANCES. Another form of narrative literature in the Middle Ages is that of Romances, and the great products of it are the Arthurian Romances and the Romances of Antiquity. THE ARTHURIAN CYCLE OF ROMANCES is a set of romantic stories founded on the legends of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, with which was early fused the legend of the Holy Graal. The legend has sources as far back as the ninth century, but expanded into definite shape in France and England in the twelfth. It had its first and highest popular development in France. Here they were collected and thrown into verse by Chrestien de Troyes. It became at once a general European possession and expanded to vast proportions. In England the Arthur stories flourished both independently and as translations from French. Sir Thomas Malory collected in the latter part of the fifteenth century a great number of these sources, translated, edited, abridged, and rewrote the whole into that charming book "Morte D'Arthur". It is accepted that this book, though so late, gives a true impression of the characteristics of the older romances. We select from this rather than from other translations of French originals, to give a mediaeval flavor to the selection and have the advantage of quoting a classic.