No More Learning

-- That they, by open miracle, the maid
Would change, and give her other sex to wear.
But all the lady's vows were ill appaid,
And haply Heaven as well might mock the prayer;
Night fades, and Phoebus raises from the main
His yellow head, and lights the world again.

XLV
"On issueing from their bed when day is broken,
The wretched Flordespina's woes augment:
For of departing Bradamant had spoken,
Anxious to scape from that embarrassment.
The princess a prime jennet, as a token,
Forced on my parting sister, when she went;
And gilded housings, and a surcoat brave,
Which her own hand had richly broidered, gave.

XLVI
"Her Flordespine accompanied some way,
Then, weeping, to her castle made return.
So fast my sister pricked, she reached that day
Mount Alban; we who for her absence mourn,
Mother and brother, greet the martial may,
And her arrival with much joy discern:
For hearing nought, we feared that she was dead,
And had remained in cruel doubt and dread.

XLVII
"Unhelmed, we wondered at her hair, which passed
In braids about her brow, she whilom wore;
Nor less we wondered at the foreign cast
Of the embroidered surcoat which she wore:
And she to us rehearsed, from first to last,
The story I was telling you before;
How she was wounded in the wood, and how,
For cure, were shorn the tresses from her brow;

XLVIII
"And next how came on her, with labour spent,
-- As by the stream she slept -- that huntress bright;
And how, with all her false semblance well content,
She from the train withdrew her out of sight.
Nor left she any thing of her lament
Untold; which touched with pity every wight;
Told how the maid had harboured her, and all
Which past, till she revisited her Hall.

XLIX
"Of Flordespine I knew: and I had seen
In Saragossa and in France the maid;
To whose bewitching eyes and lovely mien
My youthful appetite had often strayed:
Yet her I would not make my fancy's queen;
For hopeless love is but a dream and shade:
Now I this proffered in such substance view,
Straitway the ancient flame breaks forth anew.

L
"Love, with this hope, constructs his subtle ties;
Who other threads for me would vainly weave.
'Tis thus he took me, and explained the guise
In which I might the long-sought boon achieve.
Easy it were the damsel to surprise;
For as the likeness others could deceive,
Which I to Bradamant, my sister, bear,
This haply might as well the maid ensnare.

LI
"Whether I speed or no, I hold it wise,
Aye to pursue whatever give delight.
I with no other of my plan devise,
Nor any seek to counsel me aright.
Well knowing where the suit of armour lies
My sister doffed, I thither go at night;
Her armour and her steed to boot I take,
Nor stand expecting until daylight break.
LII
"I rode all night -- Love served me as a guide --
To seek the home of beauteous Flordespine;
And there arrived, before in ocean's tide
The western sun had hid his orbit sheen.
A happy man was he who fastest hied
To tell my coming to the youthful queen;
Expecting from that lady, for his pain,
Favour and goodly guerdon to obtain.

LIII
"For Bradamant the guests mistake me all,
-- As you yourself but now -- so much the more,
That I have both the courser and the pall
With which she left them but the day before.
Flordespine comes at little interval,
With such festivity and courteous lore,
And with a face, so jocund and so gay,
She could not, for her life, more joy display.

LIV
"Her beauteous arms about my neck she throws,
And fondly clasping me, my mouth she kist.
If to my inmost heart the arrow goes,
Which Love directs, may well by you be wist.
She leads me to her chamber of repose
In haste, not suffers others to assist
In taking off my panoply of steel;
Disarming me herself from head to heel.

LV
"Then, ordering from her store a costly vest,
She spread it, and -- as I a woman were --
The lady me in that rich garment drest,
And in a golden net confined my hair.
I gravely moved my eye-balls, nor confest,
By gesture or by look, the sex I bear.
My voice, which might discover the deceit,
I tuned so well that none perceived the cheat.

LVI
"Next to the hall, where dame and cavalier
In crowds are gathered, we united go;
Who make to us such court and goodly cheer,
As men to queen or high-born lady show.
Here oft I laughed at some, with secret jeer,
Who, knowing not the sex concealed below
My flowing robe of feminine array,
Wooed me with wishful eyes in wanton way.

LVII
"When more advanced in now the festive night,
And the rich board -- board plenteously purveyed
With what in season was most exquisite --
Has been some time removed, the royal maid
Expects not till I of myself recite
The cause, which thither me anew conveyed:
By her own courtesy and kindness led,
That lady prays me to partake her bed.

LVIII
"Damsels and dames withdrawn -- with all the rest --
Pages and chamberlains, when now we lay,
One and the other, in our bed undrest,
With kindled torches, counterfeiting day;
`Marvel not, lady,' (her I thus addrest,)
`That I return after such short delay;
For, haply, thou imagined, that again
Thou shouldst not see me until Heaven knows when.

LIX
" `The reason I departed from thy side,
And next of my return, explained shall be.
Could I unto thy fever have applied,
By longer sojourn here, a remedy,
I in thy service would have lived and died,
Nor would have been an hour away from thee:
But seeing how my stay increased thy woe,
I, who could do no better, fixed to go.