Edmund Spenser

“ It dimmes the dazed eyen, and daunts the senses quight.
XXII
Whom when the Prince, to battell new addrest,
⁠And threatning high his dreadfull stroke did see,
⁠His sparkling blade about his head he blest,
⁠And smote off quite his right leg by the knee,
⁠That downe he tombled; as an aged tree,
⁠High growing on the top of rocky clift,
⁠Whose hartstrings with keene steele nigh hewen be,
⁠The mightie trunck halfe rent, with ragged rift
Doth roll adowne the rocks, and fall with fearefull drift. ”

“ For to have slaine the man, that on the ground did lye.
XX
And eke the fruitfull-headed beast, amazd
⁠At flashing beames of that sunshiny shield,
⁠Became starke blind, and all his sences daz'd,
⁠That downe he tumbled on the durtie field,
⁠And seem'd himselfe as conquered to yield.
⁠Whom when his maistresse proud perceiv'd to fall,
⁠Whiles yet his feeble feet for faintnesse reeld,
⁠Unto the Gyant loudly she gan call,
O helpe Orgoglio, helpe, or else we perish all. ”

“ His sad dull eyes deepe sunck in hollow pits,
⁠Could not endure th' unwonted sunne to view;
⁠His bare thin cheekes for want of better bits,
⁠And empty sides deceived of their dew,
⁠Could make a stony hart his hap to rew;
⁠His rawbone armes, whose mighty brawned bowrs^
⁠Were wont to rive steele plates, and helmets hew,
⁠Were cleane consum'd, and all his vitall powres
Decayd, and all his flesh shronk up like withered flowres. ”

“ Or as a Castle reared high and round,
⁠By subtile engins and malitious slight
⁠Is undermined from the lowest ground,
⁠And her foundation forst, and feebled quight,
⁠At last downe falles, and with her heaped hight
⁠Her hastie ruine does more heavie make,
⁠And yields it selfe unto the victours might ”

“ And shooting in the earth, casts up a mount of clay.
X
His boystrous club, so buried in the ground,
⁠He could not rearen up againe so light,
⁠But that the knight him at avantage found,
⁠And whiles he strove his combred clubbe to quight
⁠Out of the earth, with blade all burning bright
⁠He smote off his left arme, which like a blocke
⁠Did fall to ground, depriv'd of native might;
⁠Large streames of bloud out of the truncked stocke
Forth gushed, like fresh water streame from riven rocke. ”