Instead of music and base flattering tongues,

Which wait to first salute my lord's uprise,
The cheerful lark wakes him with early songs,

And birds' sweet whistling notes unlock his eyes;

In country plays is all the strife he uses,

Or sing, or dance, unto the rural muses;

And but in music's sports all difference refuses.

His certain life that never can deceive him,

Is full of thousand sweets and rich content:
The smooth-leaved beeches in the field receive him
With coolest shades, till noon-tide's rage is spent:

His life is neither tossed in boisterous seas

Of troublous world, nor lost in slothful ease;

Pleased and full blest he is when he his God can please.

His bed of wool yields safe and quiet sleeps,
While by his side his faithful spouse hath place;

His little son into his bosom creeps,

The lively picture of his father's face:

Never his humble house or state torment him,

Less he could like, if less his God had sent him;

And when he dies, green turfs with grassy tomb content him.

The world's great Light his lowly state hath blessed,
And left his heaven to be a shepherd base,
Thousand sweet songs he to his pipe addressed,

Swift rivers stood, beasts, trees, stones ran apace,

And serpents flew, to hear his softest strains;

He led his flock where rolling Jordan reigns,

There took our rags, gave us his robes, and bore our pains.

Then thou, high Light, whom shepherds low adore,
Teach me, oh! do thou teach thy humble swain

To raise my creeping song from earthly floor!

Fill thou my empty breast with lofty strain;

That singing of thy wars and dreadful fight,
My notes may thunder out thy conquering might,
And 'twixt the golden stars cut out her tow'ring flight.

The mighty general, moved with the news

Of those four famous knights' so soon decay,
With hasty speed the conquering foe pursues;
At last he spies where they were led away:
Forced to obey the victor's proud commands,
Soon did he rush into the middle bands,

And cut the slavish cords from their captived hands.

And, for the knights were faint, he quickly sent
To Penitence, whom Phoebus taught his art,
Which she had eked with long experiment;

For many a wounded soul, and wounded heart,
Had she restored, and brought to life again :
The broken spirit, with grief and horror slain,
That oft revived, yet died as oft with smarting pain.

For she in several baths their wounds did steep,

The first of rue, which purged the foul infection, And cured the deepest wound by wounding deep; Then would she make another strange confection,

And mix it with nepenthe sovereign,

Wherewith she quickly 'suaged the rankling pain:

Thus she the knights re-cured, and washed from sinful stain.

Meantime the fight now fiercer grows than ever:

(For all his troops the Dragon hither drew).
The two twin loves, whom no place might dissever,
And Knowledge with his train begins anew
To strike fresh summons up and hot alarms :

In midt great Fido, clad in sun-like arms,

With hs unmatched force repairs all former harms.

The lovely twins ride 'gainst the Cyprian bands,

Chasing their troops now with no feigned flight;
Their broken shafts lie scattered on the sands,

Themselves for fear quite vanished out of sight.
Against these conquerors, Hypocrisy

And Cosmos hated bands, with Ecthros sly,

And all that rout do march, and bold the twins defy.

Elpinus mighty enemies assail,

By Doubt of all the other most infected,

That oft his fainting courage 'gan to fail,

More by his craft than odds of force molested;

For oft he treacherous changed his weapon light,

And sudden altered his first kind of fight,

And oft himself and shape transformed with cunning sleight.

Such shapes and changing fashions much dismayed him,
That oft he staggered with unwonted fright;

And, but his brother Fido oft did aid him,

There had he fell in unacquainted fight;
But he would still his wavering strength maintain,
And chase that monster through the sandy plain,
Which from him fled apace, but oft returned again.

Yet him more strong and cunning foes withstand,
Whom he with greater skill and strength defied:
Foul Ignorance, with all her owl-eyed band,

Oft-starting Fear, Distrust ne'er satisfied,
And fond Suspect, and thousand other foes,
Whom far he drives with his unequal blows,
And with his flaming sword their fainting army mows.

As when blood-guilty earth for vengeance cries,
(If greater things with less we may compare,)
The mighty Thunderer through the air he flies,

While snatching whirlwinds open ways prepare,
Dark clouds spread out their sable curtains o'er him,
And angels on their flaming wings up-bore him;
Meantime the guilty heavens for fear fly fast before him

There while he on the wind's proud pinions rides,

Down with his fire some lofty mount he throws,

And fills the low vale with the ruined sides,

Or on some church his three-forked dart bestows;

(Which yet his sacred worship foul mistakes,) Down falls the spire, the body fearful quakes;

Nor sure to fall or stand, with doubtful trembling shakes.

With Fido, Knowledge went, who ordered right
His mighty bands; so now his scattered troops
Make head again, filling their broken fight;

While with new change the Dragon's army droops, And from the following victors headlong run:

Yet still the Dragon frustrates what is done,

And easily makes them lose what they so hardly won.

Out of his gorge a hellish smoke he drew,

That all the field with foggy mist enwraps;

As when Tiphæus from his paunch doth spew

Black smothering flames rolled in loud thunder-claps.

The pitchy vapours choke the shining ray,

And bring dull night upon the smiling day;

The wavering Etna shakes, and fain would run away.

Yet could his bat-eyed legions easily see

In this dark chaos: they the seed of night:
But these not so, who night and darkness flee;
For they the sons of day, and joy in light:

But Knowledge soon began a way devise
To bring again the day, and clear their eyes:
So opened Fido's shield, and golden vail unties.

Of one pure diamond, celestial, fair,

That heavenly shield by cunning hand was made;
Whose light divine spread through the misty air,

To brightest morn would turn the western shade,
And lightsome day beget before his time:
Framed in heaven without all earthly crime,

Dipped in the fiery sun, which burnt the baser shine.

As when from fenny moors the lumpish clouds,
With rising steams damp the bright morning's face,

At length the piercing sun his team unshrouds,
And with his arrows th' idle fog doth chase;

The broken mist lies melted all in tears:

So this bright shield the stinking darkness tears,
And giving back the day, dissolves their former fears.

Which when afar the fiery Dragon spies,

His sleights deluded with so little pain,
To his last refuge now at length he flies.

Long time his poisonous gorge he seemed to strain;
At length with loathly sight, he up doth spew
From stinking paunch a most deformed crew,
That heaven itself did fly from their most ugly view.

The first that crept from his detested maw
Was Hamartia, foul, deformed wight-
More foul deformed the sun yet never saw,
Therefore she hates the all-betraying light:

A woman seemed she in her upper part,

To which she could such lying gloss impart,
That thousands she had slain with her deceiving art.

The rest (though hid) in serpent's form arrayed

With iron scales like to a plaited mail;

Over her back her knotty tail displayed,
Along the empty air did lofty sail;

The end was pointed with a double sting,

Which with such dreaded might she wont to fling,

That nought could help the wound but blood of heavenly King.

Her viperous locks hung loose about her ears,

Yet with a monstrous snake she them restrains,
Which like a border on her head she wears;

About her neck hang down long adder chains
In thousand knots, and wreaths enfolded round,
Which in her anger lightly she unbound,

And darting far away, would sure and deadly wound.

The second in this rank was black Despair,

Bred in the dark womb of eternal night,
His looks fast nailed to Sin; long sooty hair

Filled up his lank cheeks with wide staring fright:

His leaden eyes retired into his head;

Light, heaven, and earth, himself, and all things fled

A breathing corpse he seemed, wrapped up in living lead.