Page images
PDF
EPUB

PART III.

THIRD CANTO.

The Argument.

The Knight and Squire's prodigious flight
To quit th' enchanted bow'r by night.
He plods to turn his amorous fuit,
T'a plea in law, and profecute:
Repairs to counsel, to advise
'Bout managing the enterprise;
But first refolves to try by letter,
And one more fair address, to get her.

Part 3. Canto 3. Line 629.

L.Rofs sculp.

HUDI BRAS.

CANTO III.

WHO would believe what strange bugbears
Mankind creates itself, of fears,

That spring, like fern, that insect weed,
Equivocally, without seed,

And have no poffible foundation,

But merely in th' imagination ?

5.

And yet can do more dreadful feats

Than hags, with all their imps and teats;
Make more bewitch and haunt themselves,
Than all their nurseries of elves.

For fear does things fo like a witch,

'Tis hard t' unriddle which is which; Sets up communities of fenfes,

To chop and change intelligences;

As Roficrucian virtuofo's

Can fee with ears, and hear with noses;
And when they neither fee nor hear,
Have more than both supply'd by fear,
That makes them in the dark see visions,
And hag themselves with apparitions,
And when their eyes discover least,
Discern the subtlest objects best;
Do things not contrary alone,

To th' course of nature, but its own,

10

15

20

« PreviousContinue »