At this the challenger, with fierce defy, His trumpet sounds; the challenged makes reply: With clangour rings the field, resounds the vaulted sky. Their vizors closed, their lances in the rest, Or at the helmet pointed or the crest, They vanish from the barrier, speed the race, And spurring see decrease the middle space. A cloud of smoke envelopes either host, And all at once the combatants are lost: Darkling they join adverse, and shock unseen, Coursers with coursers justling, men with men: As labouring in eclipse, a while they stay, Till the next blast of wind restores the day. They look anew: the beauteous form of fight Is changed, and war appears a grisly sight. Two troops in fair array one moment showed, The next, a field with fallen bodies strowed: Not half the number in their seats are found; But men and steeds lie grovelling on the ground. The points of spears are stuck within the shield, The steeds without their riders scour the field. The knights unhorsed, on foot renew the fight; The glittering fauchions cast a gleaming light; Hauberks and helms are hewed with many a wound, Out spins the streaming blood, and dyes the ground. The mighty maces with such haste descend, They break the bones, and make the solid armour bend. This thrusts amid the throng with furious force; Down goes, at once, the horseman and the horse: That courser stumbles on the fallen steed, And, floundering, throws the rider o'er his head. One rolls along, a football to his foes; One with a broken truncheon deals his blows. This halting, this disabled with his wound, In triumph led, is to the pillar bound, Where by the king's award he must abide: There goes a captive led on t'other side. By fits they cease, and leaning on the lance, Take breath a while, and to new fight advance. Full oft the rivals met, and neither spared His utmost force, and each forgot to ward: The head of this was to the saddle bent, The other backward to the crupper sent: Both were by turns unhorsed; the jealous blows Fall thick and heavy, when on foot they close. So deep their fauchions bite, that every stroke Pierced to the quick; and equal wounds they gave and took. Borne far asunder by the tides of men, Like adamant and steel they met agen.