Was, (ay the while, that he is not so now) l My Lord my loue; my deare Lord, my deare loue, So long as heauens iust with equall brow[480] Vouchsafed to behold vs from aboue, One day when him high courage did emmoue, As wont ye knights to seeke aduentures wilde, He pricked forth, his puissant force to proue, Me then he left enwombed of this child, This lucklesse child, whom thus ye see with bloud defild. Him fortuned (hard fortune ye may ghesse) li To come, where vile _Acrasia_ does wonne, _Acrasia_ a false enchaunteresse, That many errant knights hath foule fordonne: Within a wandring Island, that doth ronne And stray in perilous gulfe, her dwelling is;[481] Faire Sir, if euer there ye trauell, shonne The cursed land where many wend amis, And know it by the name; it hight the _Bowre of blis_. Her blisse is all in pleasure and delight, lii Wherewith she makes her louers drunken mad, And then with words and weedes of wondrous might, On them she workes her will to vses bad: My lifest[482] Lord she thus beguiled had; For he was flesh: (all flesh doth frailtie breed.) Whom when I heard to beene so ill bestad, Weake wretch I wrapt my selfe in Palmers weed, And cast to seeke him forth through daunger and great dreed. Now had faire _Cynthia_ by euen tournes liii Full measured three quarters of her yeare, And thrise three times had fild her crooked hornes, Whenas my wombe her burdein would forbeare, And bad me call _Lucina_ to me neare. _Lucina_ came: a manchild forth I brought: The woods, the Nymphes, my bowres, my midwiues weare, Hard helpe at need. So deare thee babe I bought, Yet nought too deare I deemd, while so my dear I sought. Him so I sought, and so at last I found, liv Where him that witch had thralled to her will, In chaines of lust and lewd desires ybound, And so transformed from his former skill, That me he knew not, neither his owne ill; Till through wise handling and faire gouernance, I him recured to a better will, Purged from drugs of foule intemperance: Then meanes I gan deuise for his deliuerance. Which when the vile Enchaunteresse perceiu’d, lv How that my Lord from her I would repriue, With cup thus charmd, him parting she deceiu’d; _Sad verse, giue death to him that death does giue, And losse of loue, to her that loues to liue, So soone as Bacchus with the Nymphe does lincke_:[483] So parted we and on our iourney driue, Till comming to this well, he stoupt to drincke: The charme fulfild, dead suddenly he downe did sincke.