XLVIII.
As in the well-dried fen or stubble-land,
Short time the stalk endures, or stridulous reed,
Against the flames, which careful rustic’s hand
Scatters when Boreas blows the fires to feed;
What time they take, and by the north-wind fanned,
Crackle and snap, and through the furrow speed;
No otherwise, with little profit, those
King Mandricardo’s kindled wrath oppose.
XLIX.
When afterwards he marks the entrance free,
Left ill-secured, and without sentinel,
He, following prints (which had been recently
Marked on the mead), proceeds, amid the swell
Of loud laments, Granada’s dame to see,
If she as beauteous were as what they tell.
He wound his way ’mid corpses, where the wave,
Winding from side to side, a passage gave:
L.
And in the middle of the mead surveyed
Doralice (such the gentle lady’s name)[11],
Who, at the root of an old ash-tree laid,
Bemoaned her: fast her lamentations came,
And tears, like plenteous vein of water, strayed
Into the beauteous bosom of the dame;
Who, (so it from her lovely face appeared,)
For others mourned, while for herself she feared.
