Might there be heard: but carelesse Quiet lyes,

Wrapt in eternall silence farre from enimyes.

I

Nought is there under heav'ns wide hollownesse,

That moves more deare compassion of mind,

Then beautie brought t'unworthie wretchednesse

Through envies snares, or fortunes freakes unkind:

I, whether lately through her3 brightnes blynd,

Or through alleageance and fast fealty, Which I do owe unto all womankynd, Feele my hart perst with so great agony, As one then in a dreame, whose dryer When such I see, that all for pitty I could braine

375

dy.

XLII

The messenger
messenger approching to him
spake,

370 But his waste wordes retournd to him in vaine:

So sound he slept, that nought mought him awake.

Then rudely he him thrust, and pusht with paine,

Whereat he gan to stretch: but he againe Shooke him so hard, that forced him to speake.

Is tost with troubled sights and fancies weake,

He mumbled soft, but would not all his silence breake.

From CANTO III

*

2 anxiety.

5

III

And pointing forth, "Lo! yonder is," (said she)

20

cheare:

And on the top of all I do espye
The watchman wayting tydings glad to
heare;

25

That, O my Parents! might I happily. Unto you bring, to ease you of your misery!"

IV

With that they heard a roaring hideous
sownd,

That all the ayre with terror filled wyde,
And seemd uneath1 to shake the stedfast
ground.
Eftsoones2 that dreadful dragon they
espyde,

30

"The brasen towre, in which my parents
deare
For dread of that huge feend emprisond
be;

Whom I from far see on the walles ap

peare,

The god of warre with his fiers equipage

Whose sight my feeble soule doth greatly Thou doest awake, sleepe never he so

Where stretcht he lay upon the sunny side
Of a great hill, himselfe like a great hill.
But all so soone as he from far descryde
Those glistring armes, that heven with
light did fill,

35

He rousd himselfe full blyth, and hastned them untill.

1

go.

VI

O gently come into my feeble brest;
Come gently, but not with that mightie
rage,

Wherewith the martiall troupes thou doest
infest,

And hartes of great heroës doest enrage,
That nought their kindled corage may

aswage:

50

Soone as thy dreadfull trompe begins to
sownd,

sownd;

And scared nations doest with horror
sterne astownd.

VII

Fayre goddesse, lay that furious fitt
asyde,

55

Till I of warres and bloody Mars doe sing,
And Bryton fieldes with Sarazin blood
bedyde,

Twixt that great Faery Queene and
Paynim King,

That with their horror heven and earth
did ring,

60

A worke of labour long, and endlesse
prayse:
But now a while lett downe that haughtie
string,

And to my tunes thy second tenor rayse,
That I this man of God his godly armes
may blaze.

VIII

By this the dreadful Beast drew nigh to
Halfe flying and halfe footing in his haste,

hand,

• child.

That with his largenesse measured much

Whose wreathed boughtes1 when ever he unfoldes,

land,

66

And made wide shadow under his huge And thick entangled knots adown does waste,

slack, Bespotted as with shieldes of red and blacke,

95

As mountaine doth the valley overcaste.
Approching nigh, he reared high afore
His body monstrous, horrible, and vaste,70
Which, to increase his wondrous greatnes
more,

It sweepeth all the land behind him farre,
And of three furlongs does but litle lacke;
And at the point two stinges in fixed arre,
Both deadly sharp, that sharpest steele
exceeden farre.

Was swoln with wrath and poyson, and
with bloody gore.