by fairy craft,
    Back to its master speeds the reeking shaft;
    Deep in his sinewy thigh inflicts a wound,
    And strikes the astonish’d hunter to the ground,
    While, with a voice which neither bray’d nor spoke,
    Thus fearfully the beast her silence broke:—­
    “Pains, agonizing pains must thou endure,
    Till wit of lady’s love shall work the cure: 
    Wo, then, her fated guerdon she shall find
    The heaviest that may light on womankind!”

      Sir Gugemer, who strove, with courage vain,
    Up from the earth to rise, distraught with pain,
    While hies his varlet home for succour strong,
    Crawls slow with trailing limb the sward along;
    ’Twas part precipitate, steep rocky shore;
    Hoarse at its foot was heard old Ocean’s roar;
    And in a shelter’d cove at anchor rode,
    Close into land, where slept the solemn flood,
    A gallant bark, that with its silken sails
    Just bellying, caught the gently rising gales,
    And from its ebon sides shot dazzling sheen
    Of silvery rays with mingled gold between. 
    A favouring fairy had beheld the blow
    Dealt the young hunter by her mortal foe: 
    Thence grown his patroness, she vows to save,
    And cleaves with magick help the sparkling wave: 
    Now, by a strange resistless impulse driven,
    The knight assays the lot by fortune given: 
    Lo, now he climbs, with fairy power to aid,
    The bark’s steep side, on silken cordage stay’d;
    Gains the smooth deck, and, wonders to behold,
    A couch of cypress spread with cloth of gold,
    While from above, with many a topaz bright,
    Two golden globes sent forth their branching light: 
    And longer had he gaz’d, but sleep profound,
    Wrought by the friendly fairy, wrapt him round. 
    Stretch’d on the couch the hunter lies supine,
    And the swift bark shoots lightly o’er the brine. 
      For, where the distant prospect fading dies,
    And sea and land seem mingling with the skies,
    A massy tower of polish’d marble rose;
    There dwelt the fair physician of his woes: 
    Nogiva was the name the princess bore;
    Her spouse old, shrewd, suspicious evermore,
    Here mew’d his lovely consort, young and fair,
    And watch’d her with a dotard’s bootless care. 
    Sure, Love these dotards dooms to jealous pain,
    And the world’s laugh, when all their toil proves vain. 
      This lord, howe’er, did all that mortal elf
    Could do, to keep his treasure to himself: 
    Stay’d much at home, and when in luckless hour
    His state affairs would drag him from his tower,
    Left with his spouse a niece himself had bred,
    To be the partner of her board and bed;
    And one old priest, a barren lump of clay,
    To chant their mass, and serve them day by day. 
      Her prison room