Read "Stories of Charlemagne and the Twelve Peers of France" by Alfred John Church online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Count Roland looked round on the mountain-sides and on the plains. / Alas! how many noble sons of France he saw lying dead upon them! / "Dear friends," he said, weeping as he spoke, "may God have mercy on / you and receive you into His Paradise! More loyal followers have I / never seen. How is the fair land of France widowed of her bravest, / and I can give you no help. Oliver, dear comrade, we must not part. / If the enemy slay me not here, surely I shall be slain by sorrow. / Come, then, let us smite these heathen."
Thus did Roland again charge the enemy, his good sword Durendal in / his hand; as the stag flies before the hounds, so did the heathen fly / before Roland. "By my faith," cried the Archbishop when he saw him, / "that is a right good knight! Such courage, and such a steed, and / such arms I love well to see. If man be not brave and a stout / fighter, he had better by far be a monk in some cloister where he may / pray all day long for our sins."