[* _Snakie-paced_, winding; or perhaps (like Ovid's _anguipes_) swift.]
XIV.
As men in summer fearles passe the foord
Which is in winter lord of all the plaine,
And with his tumbling streames doth beare aboord*
The ploughmans hope and shepheards labour vaine,
And as the coward beasts use to despise
The noble lion after his lives end,
Whetting their teeth, and with vaine foolhardise
Daring the foe that cannot him defend,
And as at Troy most dastards of the Greekes
Did brave about the corpes of Hector colde,
So those which whilome wont with pallid cheekes
The Romane triumphs glorie to behold,
Now on these ashie tombes shew boldnesse vaine,
And, conquer'd, dare the conquerour disdaine.
[*_Aboord_, into the current.]
XV.
Ye pallid spirits, and ye ashie ghoasts,
Which, ioying in the brightnes of your day,
Brought foorth those signes of your presumptuous boasts
Which now their dusty reliques do bewray,
Tell me, ye spirits! (sith the darksome river
Of Styx, not passable to soules returning,
Enclosing you in thrice three wards for ever,
Doo not restraine your images still mourning,)
Tell me then, (for perhaps some one of you
Yet here above him secretly doth hide,)
Doo ye not feele your torments to accrewe,
When ye sometimes behold the ruin'd pride
Of these old Romane works, built with your hands,
To become nought els but heaped sands?
XVI.
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