No More Learning

XXXIV
What was the friar's design I well surmise;
And you shall know; but in another page.
Angelica now slow, now faster, flies,
Nought fearing this: while conjured by the sage,
The demon covered in the courser lies;
As fire sometimes will hide its smothered rage:
Then blazes with devouring flame and heat,
Unquenchable, and scarce allows retreat.

XXXV
After the flying maid had shaped her course
By the great sea which laves the Gascon shore,
Still keeping to the rippling waves her horse,
Where best the moistened sand the palfrey bore,
Him, plunged into the brine, the fiend perforce
Dragged, till he swam amid the watery roar.
Nor what to do the timid damsel knew,
Save that she closer to her saddle grew.

XXXVI
She cannot, howsoe'er the rein she ply,
Govern the horse, who swims the surge to meet:
Her raiment she collects and holds it high;
And, not to wet them, gathers up her feet.
Her tresses, which the breeze still wantonly
Assaults, dishevelled on her shoulders beat.
The louder winds are hushed, perchance in duty,
Intent, like ocean, on such sovereign beauty.

XXXVII
Landward in vain her eyes the damsel bright
Directs, which water face and breast with tears,
And ever sees, decreasing to her sight,
The beach she left, which less and less appears.
The courser, who was swimming to the right,
After a mighty sweep, the lady bears
To shore, where rock and cavern shag the brink,
As night upon the land begins to sink.

XXXVIII
When in that desert, which but to descry
Bred fear in the beholder, stood the maid
Alone, as Phoebus, plunged in ocean, sky
And nether earth had left obscured in shade;
She paused in guise, which in uncertainty
Might leave whoever had the form surveyed,
If she were real woman, or some mock
Resemblance, coloured in the living rock.

XXXIX
She, fixed and stupid in her wretchedness,
Stood on the shifting sand, with ruffled hair:
Her hands were joined, her lips were motionless,
Her languid eyes upturned, as in despair,
Accusing Him on high, that to distress
And whelm her, all the fates united were.
Astound she stood awhile; when grief found vent
Through eyes and tongue, in tears and in lament.

XL
"Fortune what more remains, that thou on me
Shouldst not now satiate thy revengeful thirst?
What more (she said) can I bestow on thee
Than, what thou seekest not, this life accurst?
Thou wast in haste to snatch me from the sea,
Where I had ended its sad days, immersed;
Because to torture me with further ill
Before I die, is yet thy cruel will.
XLI
"But what worse torment yet remains in store
Beyond, I am unable to descry:
By thee from my fair throne, which nevermore
I hope to repossess, compelled to fly;
I, what is worse, my honour lost deplore;
For if I sinned not in effect, yet I
Give matter by my wanderings to be stung
For wantonness of every carping tongue.

XLII
"What other good is left to woman, who
Has lost her honour, in this earthly ball?
What profits it that, whether false or true,
I am deemed beauteous, and am young withal?
No thanks to heaven for such a gift are due,
Whence on my head does every mischief fall.
For this my brother Argalia died;
To whom small help enchanted arms supplied:

XLIII
"For this the Tartar king, Sir Agrican,
Subdued my sire, who Galaphron was hight,
And of Catay in India was great khan;
'Tis hence I am reduced to such a plight,
That wandering evermore, I cannot scan
At morn, where I shall lay my head at night.
If thou hast ravished what thou couldst, wealth, friends,
And honour; say what more thy wrath intends.

XLIV
"If death by drowning in the foaming sea
Was not enough thy wrath to satiate,
Send, if thou wilt, some beast to swallow me,
So that he keep me not in pain! Thy hate
Cannot devise a torment, so it be
My death, but I shall thank thee for my fate! "
Thus, with loud sobs, the weeping lady cried,
When she beheld the hermit at her side.

XLV
From the extremest height the hermit hoar
Of that high rock above her, had surveyed
Angelica, arrived upon the shore,
Beneath the cliff, afflicted and dismayed.
He to that place had come six days before;
For him by path untrod had fiend conveyed:
And he approached her, feigning such a call
As e'er Hilarion might have had, or Paul.

XLVI
When him, yet unagnized, she saw appear,
The lady took some comfort, and laid by,
Emboldened by degrees, her former fear:
Though still her visage was of death-like dye.
"Misericord! father," when the friar was near
(She said), "for brought to evil pass am I. "
And told, still broke by sobs, in doleful tone,
The story, to her hearer not unknown.

XLVII
To comfort her, some reasons full of grace,
Sage and devout the approaching hermit cites:
And, now his hand upon her moistened face,
In speaking, now upon her bosom lights:
As her, securer, next he would embrace:
Him, kindling into pretty scorn, she smites
With one hand on his breast, and backward throws,
Then flushed with honest red, all over glows.