XXXIV.

A little lowly hermitage it was,
Down in a dale, hard by a forest's side,
Far from resort of people, that did pass,
In travel to and fro: a little wide
There was an holy chapel edified,*
Wherein the hermit duly wont to say
His holy things each morn and eventide :
Thereby a christal stream did gently play,
Which from a sacred fountain welled forth alway.

XXXV.

Arrived there, the little house they fill,
Nor look for entertainment, where none was;
Rest is their feast, and all things at their will:
The noblest mind the best contentment has.
With fair discourse the evening so they pass;
For that old man of pleasing words had store,
And well could file his tongue, as smooth as glass:
He told of saints and popes, and evermore

He strow'd an Ave-Mary after and before.

XXXVI.

The drooping night thus creepeth on them fast;
And the sad humor loading their eye-lids,

As messenger of Morpheus, on them cast

Sweet slumbering dew, the which to sleep them bids.
Unto their lodgings then his guests he rids:
Where when all drown'd in deadly sleep he finds,

He to his study goes; and there amids

His magic books, and arts of sundry kinds,

He seeks out mighty charms to trouble sleepy minds. * Edified, built.

XXXVII.

Then choosing out few words most horrible,
(Let none them read!) thereof did verses frame:
With which, and other spells like terrible,
He bade awake black Pluto's grisly dame;
And cursed Heaven; and spake reproachful shame
Of highest God, the Lord of life and light.
A bold bad man! that dar'd to call by name
Great Gorgon,* prince of darkness and dead night;
At which Cocytus quakes, and Styx is put to flight.

XXXVIII.

And forth he call'd out of deep darkness dread
Legions of sprights, the which, like little flies,†
Fluttering about his ever-damned head,
Await whereto their service he applies,
To aid his friends, or fray‡ his enemies :
Of those he chose out two, the falsest two,
And fittest for to forge true-seeming lies ;
The one of them he gave a message to,
The other by himself staid other work to do.

XXXIX.

He, making speedy way through spersed air,
And through the world of waters wide and deep,
To Morpheus' house doth hastily repair,

Amid the bowels of the earth full steep,

* The ancients were superstitiously afraid of uttering the name of Gorgon, or Demogorgon.-Warton.

† Flies are embodiments of evil spirits; Anacreon forbids us to call them incarnations, as insects are fleshless and bloodless. Beelzebub signifies the Lord of Flies.-Hunt's Imagination and Fancy

Fray, to frighten.

And low, where dawning day doth never peep,
His dwelling is; there Tethys his wet bed
Doth ever wash, and Cynthia still doth steep

In silver dew his ever-drooping head,

Whiles sad Night over him her mantle black doth spread.

XL.

Whose double gates he findeth locked fast ;
The one fair fram'd of burnish'd ivory,
The other all with silver overcast ;

And wakeful dogs before them far do lie,
Watching to banish Care their enemy,
Who oft is wont to trouble gentle Sleep.
By them the sprite doth pass in quietly,

And unto Morpheus comes, whom drowned deep
In drowsy fit he finds; of nothing he takes keep.

XLI.

And, more to lull him in his slumber soft,

A trickling stream from high rock tumbling down,
And ever-drizzling rain upon the loft,

Mixt with a murmuring wind, much like the sound
Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swown.
No other noise, nor peoples troublous cries,
As still are wont t' annoy the walled town,
Might there be heard: but careless Quiet lies
Wrapt in eternal silence far from enemies.*

* The exquisite adaptation of the sound of this stanza to its sense has been much praised. Hunt observes, "A poetical reader need hardly be told that he should humor such verses with a corresponding tone in the recital."

XLII.

The messenger approaching to him spake ;
But his waste words return'd to him in vain :
So sound he slept, that nought might him awake.
Then rudely he him thrust, and push'd with pain,
Whereat he gan to stretch: but he again

Shook him so hard, that forced him to speak.
As one then in a dream, whose dryer brain

Is tost with troubled sights and fancies weak,

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

XLIII.

The sprite then gan more boldly him to wake,
And threatned unto him the dreaded name
Of Hecaté: whereat he gan to quake,

And, lifting up his lumpish head, with blame
asked him, for what he came.

Half angry

"Hither," quoth he, "me Archimago sent,

He that the stubborn sprites can wisely tame,
He bids thee to him send for his intent

A fit false Dream, that can delude the sleepers sent."

XLIV.

The god obey'd; and, calling forth straight way
A diverse dream out of his prison dark,

Delivered it to him, and down did lay

His heavy head, devoid of careful cark;
Whose senses all were straight benumbed and stark.
He, back returning by the ivory door,
Remounted up as light as cheerful lark,
And on his little wings the Dream he bore

In haste unto his lord, where he him left before.

XLV.

Who all this while, with charms and hidden arts,
Had made a lady of that other spright,

And fram'd of liquid air her tender parts,
So lively, and so like in all mens sight,

That weaker sense it could have ravished quite :

The makers seif, for all his wondrous wit,
Was nigh beguiled with so goodly sight.

Her all in white he clad, and over it

Cast a black stole, most like to seem to Una fit.

XLVI.

Now when that idle Dream was to him brought,
Unto that elfin knight he bad him fly,

Where he slept soundly void of evil thought,
And with false shews abuse his fantasy;

In sort as he him schooled privily.

And that new creature, born without her due,
Full of the makers guile, with usage sly

He taught to imitate that lady true,

Whose semblance she did carry under feigned hue.

The foregoing description of the House of Sleep, is one of those exquisite pictures whose richness is equalled only by its truth. Hunt says of it-"We are to suppose a precipitous country, striking gloomily and far downwards to a cavernous sea-shore, in which the bed of Morpheus is placed, the ends of its curtains dipping and fluctuating in the water which reaches it from underground. The door is towards a flat on the land side, with dogs lying far before it, and a lulling sound overhead of wind and rain-the sounds that men love to hear in the intervals