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Flight of Florimell

Flight of Florimell

Like as an hind forth singled from the herd,
That hath escap茅d from a ravenous beast,
Yet flies away of her own feet afeard,
And every leaf, that shaketh with the least
Murmur of wind, her terror hath increased;
So fled fair Florimell from her vain fear,
Long after she from peril was released:
Each shade she saw, and each noise she did hear,
Did seem to be the same, which she escaped whilere.

All that same evening she in flying spent,
And all that night her course continu茅d:
Nor did she let dull sleep once to relent,
Nor weariness to slack her haste, but fled
Ever alike, as if her former dread
Were hard behind, her ready to arrest:
And her white palfrey having conquer茅d
The mastering reins out of her weary wrest,
Perforce her carried, wherever he thought best.

—Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene: Book III, canto VII, stanzas I and II

Painting by Washington Allston, 1819: Flight of Florimell