Je chante les combats pieux, et le Guerrier Qui délivra du Christ la tombe renommée. Combien il déploya de génie et d’ardeur! Combien il supporta de maux dans cette guerre! Vainement les enfers s’armèrent; vainement Les peuples de l’Asie aux Africains s’unirent: Favorisé du Ciel, sous ses drapeaux sacrés, Vainqueur, il ramena ses compagnons fidèles. Divine Muse! ô toi dont le front radieux Ne ceint point sur le Pinde un laurier périssable, Mais qui, parmi les chœurs des habitants du Ciel, Chantes, le front orné d’étoiles immortelles, Viens, inspire à mon sein tes célestes ardeurs; Fais briller dans mes vers tes clartés, et pardonne Si, parant quelquefois l’austère vérité, Je mêle à tes attraits des grâces étrangères. I sing the pious arms and Chief, who freed The Sepulchre of Christ from thrall profane: Much did he toil in thought, and much in deed; Much in the glorious enterprise sustain; And Hell in vain opposed him; and in vain Afric and Asia to the rescue pour’d Their mingled tribes;――Heaven recompensed his pain, And from all fruitless sallies of the sword, True to the Red-Cross flag his wandering friends restored. O thou, the Muse, that not with fading palms Circlest thy brows on Pindus, but among The Angels warbling their celestial psalms, Hast for the coronal a golden throng Of everlasting stars! make thou my song Lucid and pure; breathe thou the flame divine Into my bosom; and forgive the wrong, If with grave truth light fiction I combine, And sometimes grace my page with other flowers than thine! WIFFEN. Canto l’armi pietose, e’l Capitano Che’l gran sepolcro liberò di Christo: Molto egli oprò col senno e con la mano; Molto soffri nel glorioso acquisto: E invano l’Inferno a lui s’oppose, e invano S’armò d’Asia, e dì Libia il popol misto; Chè il Ciel diè favore, e sotto ai santi Segni ridusse i suoi compagni erranti. O Musa, tu, che di caduchi allori Non circondi la fronte in Elicona Ma su nel Ciel infra i beati cori, Hai di stelle immortali aurea corona, Tu spira al petto mio celesti ardori, Tu rischiara il mio canto, e tu perdona, S’intesso fregi al ver, s’adorno in parte D’altri diletti, che de’ tuoi, le carte. The captivating enthusiasm of Homer, the majestic simplicity of Vergil are not there; there is a sweetness of expression, a purity of imagery which please. This might be greater, but then the melancholy of the romance would exclude it and the reader would demand the full force of epopœia.