Page:Romance of the Rose (Ellis), volume 1.pdf/246

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For he by power of will alone

May scorn her strokes if adverse grown.

Give ear: A folly most extreme

It is that men should Fortune deem

A Goddess, up to highest heaven

Exalting her, for ne’er was given

To her by reason nor by right

In paradise a mansion bright;

No house enduring hath she got,

But one right perilous, God wot.

Amid a sea, of depth profound,

Rises a mighty rock, around

Whose bases in tumultuous roar

The rude waves beat for evermore.

The billows never shepherded,

Dash ’gainst its sides, and o’er its head,

And ever and again nigh drown

With thundering burst its high-built crown.

Sometimes the giant’s strength awakes,

And so the assaulting deluge shakes,

That ’tis half vanquished and falls back

While draws he breath ’gainst fresh attack.

But ever, Proteus-like, his shape

Doth change, as one who would escape

Cognition of his boisterous foes,

And when he lifts his head, he shows

A thousand flowerets (like to stars

That brighten heaven around the cars

Of deities) amidst the tides,

When Zephyrus in triumph rides,

But when the north wind blows, he reaps

With freezing sword the flowers in heaps.