63. THE CAVE OF MAMMON.
Before the door sat self-consuming Care,
Day and night keeping wary watch and ward,
For fear lest Force or Fraud should unaware
Break in, and spoil the treasure there in guard;
Nor would he suffer Sleep once thitherward
Approach, albe his drowsy den were next-
For next to death is Sleep to be compared,
Therefore his house is unto his annexed;
Here Sleep, there Riches, and Hell-gate them both betwixt.
So soon as Mammon there arrived, the door
To him did open and afforded way;
Him followed also Sir Guyon evermore,
Nor darkness him, nor danger might dismay.
Soon as he entered was the door straightway
Did shut, and from behind it forth there leapt
An ugly fiend, more foul than dismal day,
The which with monstrous stalk behind him stept,
And ever as he went due watch upon him kept.
Well hoped he, ere long that hardy guest,
If ever covetous hand, or lustful eye,
Or lips he laid on thing that liked him best,
Or ever sleep his eye-strings did untie,
Should be his prey; and therefore still on high
He over him did hold his cruel claws,
Threatening with greedy grip to do him die,
And rend in pieces with his ravenous paws,
If ever he transgressed the fatal Stygian laws.
That house's form within was rude and strong,
Like an huge cave hewn out of rocky clift,
From whose rough vault the ragged breaches hung
Embossed with massy gold of glorious gift,"
And with rich metal loaded every rift,
That heavy ruin they did seem to threat ;
And over them Arachne high did lift
Her cunning web, and spread her subtle net, Enwrapped in foul smoke and clouds more black than jet.
Both roof, and floor, and walls were all of gold,
But overgrown with dust and old decay,
And hid in darkness, that none could behold
The hue thereof; for view of cheerful day
Did never in that house itself display,
But a faint shadow of uncertain light—
Such as a lamp, whose life does fade away,
Or as the moon, clothed with cloudy night,
Does show to him that walks in fear and sad affright.
In all that room was nothing to be seen
But huge great iron chests, and coffers strong,
All barred with double bends, that none could ween
Them to efforce by violence or wrong;
On every side they placed were along.
But all the ground with skulls was scattered,
And dead men's bones, which round about were flung; Whose lives, it seemed, whilom there were shed, And their vile carcases now left unburied.
They forward pass; nor Guyon yet spoke word,
Till that they came unto an iron door,
Which to them opened of his own accord,
And showed of riches such exceeding store
As eye of man did never see before,
Nor ever could within one place be found,
Though all the wealth which is, or was of yore,
Could gathered be through all the world around,
And that above were added to that under ground.
The charge thereof unto a covetous Sprite
Commanded was, who thereby did attend,
And warily awaited day and night,
From other covetous fiends it to defend,
Who it to rob and ransack did intend.
Then Mammon, turning to that warrior, said,—
'Lo, here the world's bliss! lo, here the end
To which all men do aim, rich to be made! Such grace now to be happy is before thee laid."
"Certes," said he, "I nill thine offered grace,
Nor to be made so happy do intend;
Another bliss before mine eyes I place,
Another happiness, another end.
To them that list these base regards I lend;
But I in arms, and in achievements brave,
Do rather choose my flitting hours to spend,
And to be lord of those that riches have
Than them to have myself and be their servile slave."
Thereat the fiend his gnashing teeth did grate,
And grieved so long to lack his greedy prey,
For well he weened that so glorious bait
Would tempt his guest to take thereof assay;
Had he so done, he had him snatched away,
More light than culver in the falcon's fist.
Eternal God thee save from such decay!
But when as Mammon saw his purpose missed,
Him to entrap unawares another way he wist.
Thence forward he him led, and shortly brought
Unto another room, whose door forthright
To him did open, as it had been taught.
Therein an hundred ranges weren pight,
And hundred furnaces all burning bright.
By every furnace many fiends did bide,
Deformed creatures, horrible in sight;
And every fiend his busy pains applied
To melt the golden metal, ready to be tried.
One with great bellows gathered filling air,
And with forced wind the fuel did inflame;
Another did the dying brands repair
With iron tongs, and sprinkled oft the same
With liquid waves, fierce Vulcan's rage to tame,
Who, mastering them, renewed his former heat;
Some scummed the dross that from the metal came;
Some stirred the molten ore with ladles great;
And every one did swink, and every one did sweat.
But when an earthly wight they present saw
Glistering in arms and battelous array,
From their hot work they did themselves withdraw
To wonder at the sight; for till that day
They never creature saw that came that way.
Their staring eyes sparkling with fervent fire,
And ugly shapes, did nigh the man dismay,
That, were it not for shame, he would retire;
Till that him thus bespake their sovereign Lord and Sire:-
"Behold, thou Faerie's son, with mortal eye,
That living eye before did never see.
The thing that thou didst crave so earnestly—
To wit, whence all the wealth late showed by me
Proceeded-lo, now is revealed to thee!
Here is the fountain of the world's good;
Now, therefore, if thou wilt enriched be,
Advise thee well, and change thy wilful mood,
Lest thou perhaps hereafter wish and be withstood."
"Suffice it then, thou Money God," quoth he,
"That all thine idle offers I refuse.
All that I need I have; what needeth me
To covet more than I have cause to use?
With such vain shows thy worldlings vile abuse,
But give me leave to follow mine emprise.”
Mammon was much displeased, yet no'te he chuse
But bear the rigour of his bold mesprise,
And thence him forward led him further to entice.
Damascus should be approached only one way, and that is from the north-west. The traveller who comes from that quarter passes over the great chain of AntiLibanus; he crosses the watershed, and he finds himself following the course of a little stream flowing through a richly cultivated valley. The stream is the Barada. It rises in the plain of Zebdani; it flows on, and the cultivation, which at its rise spreads far and wide along its banks, nourished by the rills which feed it, is gradually contracted within the limits of its single channel. The mountains rise round it absolutely bare. The peaks of Mount Sinai are hardly more sterile than these Syrian ranges. But the river winds through them, visible everywhere by its mass of vegetation-willow, poplar, hawthorn, walnut, hanging over a rushing volume of crystal water-the more striking from the contrast with the naked desert in which it is found.
One vast accession it receives-the volume of water which bursts from the rock of Fijeh, out of the sanctuary which, as if in admiration of this most copious of all the springs of Syria, was built over its source. Perhaps in no part of the East is there so wonderful a witness to the peculiarly Oriental connection between verdure and running water as the view on which we are now entering. The further we advance, the contrast becomes more and more forcible-the mountains more bare, the green of the river-bed more deep and rich. At last a cleft opens in the rocky
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