Fragment from Ariosto

LADIES, and knights, and arms, and love's fair flame,
Deeds of emprise and courtesy, I sing;
What time the Moors from sultry Africk came,
Led on by Agramant, their youthful king --
Him whom revenge and hasty ire did bring
O'er the broad wave, in France to waste and war ;
Such ills from old Trojano's death did spring,
Which to avenge he came from realms afar,
And menaced Christian Charles, the Roman Emperor.

Of dauntless Roland, too, my strain shall sound,
In import never known in prose or rhyme,
How he, the chief of judgment deem'd profound,
For luckless love was crazed upon a time --