"If ever love of lady did empierce

Your iron breasts, or pity could find place,
Withhold your bloody hands from battle fierce;
And sith for me ye fight, to me this grace
Both yield, to stay your deadly strife a space;"
They stay'd awhile, and forth she gan proceed:
"Most wretched woman, and of wicked race,
That am the author of this heinous deed, 1
And cause of death between two doughty knights
do breed.

"But if for me ye fight, or me will serve,
Not this rude kind of battle, nor these arms
Are meet, the which do men in bale to sterve,
And doleful sorrow heap with deadly harms:
Such cruel game my scarmoges disarms.
Another war and other weapons I

Do love, where love does give his sweet alarms
Without bloodshed, and where the enemy
Does yield unto his foe a pleasant victory.

"Debateful strife and cruel enmity

The famous name of knighthood foully shend;
But lovely peace and gentle amity,

And in amours the passing hours to spend,
The mighty martial hands do most commend;

Of love they ever greater glory bore
Than of their arms: Mars is Cupido's friend,
And is for Venus' loves renowned more

Than all his wars and spoils the which he did of yore."

Therewith she sweetly smil'd. They, though full

bent

To prove extremities of bloody fight,

Yet at her speech their rages gan relent,
And calm the sea of their tempestuous spite :
Such power have pleasing words: such is the might
Of courteous clemency in gentle heart.

Now after all was ceas'd, the Faery Knight
Besought that damsel suffer him depart,

And yield him ready passage to that other part.

She no less glad than he desirous was
Of his departure thence; for of her joy
And vain delight she saw he light did pass,
A foe of folly and immodest toy,
Still solemn sad, or still disdainful coy,
Delighting all in arms and cruel war,

That her sweet peace and pleasures did annoy,
Troubled with terror and unquiet jar,

That she well pleas'd was thence to amove him far.

Tho' him she brought aboard, and her swift boat
Forthwith directed to that further strand,
That which on the dull waves did lightly float,
And soon arrived on the shallow sand,
Where gladsome Guyon sailed forth to land,
And to that damsel thanks. gave for reward:
Upon that shore he espied Atin stand,
There by his master left, when late he far'd
In Phædria's fleet bark, over that perlous shard.

SIR GUYON, GUIDED BY THE PALMER TEMPER-
ANCE, PASSES THE DANGERS OF THE BOWER
OF BLISS.

WITH that the rolling sea resounding soft,
In his big base them fitly answered,
And on the rock the waves breaking aloft,
A solemn mean unto them measured;
The whiles sweet Zephyrus loud whistled
His treble, a strange kind of harmony,
Which Guyon's senses softly tickled,
That he the boatman bade row easily,
And let him hear some part of their rare melody.

But him the palmer from that vanity
With temperate advice discounselled,
That they it past, and shortly gan descry
The land to which their course they levelled;
When suddenly a gross fog overspread

With his dull vapour all that desert has,

And heaven's cheerful face enveloped,

That all things one, and one as nothing was,

And this great universe seem'd one confused mass.

Thereat they greatly were dismay'd, ne wist

How to direct their way in darkness wide,
But fear'd to wander in that wasteful mist,
For tumbling into mischief unespied :
Worse is the danger hidden than descried.
Suddenly an innumerable flight

Of harmful fowls about them fluttering cried, And with their wicked wings them oft did smite, And sore annoy'd, groping in that griesly night.

Even all the nation of unfortunate

And fatal birds about them flocked were,
Such as by nature men abhor and hate;
The ill-fac'd owl, death's dreadful messenger;
The hoarse night-raven, trump of doleful drear;
The leather-winged bat, day's enemy;
The rueful strich, still waiting on the bier;
The whistler shrill, that whoso hears doth die;
The hellish harpies, prophets of sad destiny:

All those, and all that else does horror breed,
About them flew, and fill'd their sails with fear:
Yet stay'd they not, but forward did proceed,
Whiles the one did row, and th' other stiffly steer;
Till that at last the weather gan to clear,

And the fair land itself did plainly show.
Said then the palmer, "Lo where does appear
The sacred soil where all our perils grow,
Therefore, Sir Knight, your ready arms about you
`throw."

He hearken'd, and his arms about him took,
The whiles the nimble boat so well her sped,

That with her crooked keel the land she struck ;
Then forth the noble Guyon sallied,

And his sage palmer that him governed;

But the other by his boat behind did stay.
They marched fairly forth, of nought ydred,
Both firmly arm'd for every hard assay,

With constancy and care, gainst danger and dismay.

Ere long they heard an hideous bellowing
Of many beasts, that roar'd outrageously.
As if that Hunger's point, or Venus' sting,
Had them enraged with fell surquedry;
Yet nought they fear'd, but past on hardily,
Until they came in view of those wild beasts,
Who all at once, gaping full greedily,

And rearing fiercely their upstarting crests,
Ran towards to devour those unexpected guests.

But soon as they approach'd with deadly threat,
The palmer over them his staff upheld,
His mighty staff, that could all charms defeat;
Eftsoons their stubborn courages were quell'd,
And high-advanced crests down meekly fell'd:
Instead of fraying they themselves did fear,
And trembled, as them passing they beheld:
Such wond'rous power did'in that staff appear,
All monsters to subdue to him that did it bear.

Of that same wood it fram'd was cunningly
Of which Caduceus whileome was made,
Caduceus, the rod of Mercury,

With which he wont the Stygian realms invade

Through ghastly horror and eternal shade;