No longer could the Day nor Destinies
Delay the Night, who now did frowning rise
Into her throne; and at her humorous breasts,
Visions and Dreams lay sucking: all men's rests
Fell like the mists of death upon their eyes,
Day's too long darts so kill'd their faculties.
The winds yet, like the flowers, to cease began;
For bright Leucote, Venus' whitest swan,
That held sweet Hero dear, spread her fair wings,
Like to a field of snow, and message brings
From Venus to the Fates, t' entreat them lay
Their charge upon the winds their rage to stay,
That the stern battle of the seas might cease,
And guard Leander to his love in peace.
The Fates consent, (aye me! dissembling Fates)
They show'd their favours to conceal their hates,
And draw Leander on, lest seas too high
Should stay his too obsequious destiny:
Who like a fleering slavish parasite,
In warping profit or a traiterous sleight,
Hoops round his rotten body with devotes,
And pricks his descant face full of false notes;
Praising with open throat, and oaths as foul
As his false heart, the beauty of an owl;
Kissing his skipping hand with charmed skips,
That cannot leave, but leaps upon his lips
Like a cock-sparrow, or a shameless quean
Sharp at a red lipp'd youth, and nought doth mean
Of all his antic shows, but doth repair
More tender fawns, and takes a scatter'd hair
From his tame subject's shoulder; whips and calls
For every thing he lacks; creeps 'gainst the walls
With backward humblesse, to give needless way:
Thus his false fate did with Leander play.
First to black Eurus flies the white Leucote, (Born 'mongst the negroes in the Levant sea, On whose curl'd head the glowing sun doth rise) And shows the sovereign will of Destinies, To have him cease his blasts,-and down he lies. Next, to the fenny Notus course she holds, And found him leaning with his arms in folds Upon a rock, his white hair full of showers, And him she chargeth by the fatal powers, To hold in his wet cheeks his cloudy voice. To Zephyr then that doth in flowers rejoice: To snake-foot Boreas next she did remove, And found him tossing of his ravish'd love, To heat his frosty bosom hid in snow; Who with Leucote's sight did cease to blow.Thus all were still to Hero's heart's desire, Who with all speed did consecrate a fire
Of flaming gums, and comfortable spice,
To light her torch, which in such curious price
She held, being object to Leander's sight,
That nought but fires perfum'd must give it light.
She lov'd it so, she griev'd to see it burn,
Since it would waste and soon to ashes turn:
Yet if it burn'd not, 'twere not worth her eyes,
What made it nothing, gave it all the prize.
Sweet torch! true glass of our society;
What man does good, but he consumes thereby?
But thou wert lov'd for good, held high, given show:
Poor virtue loath'd for good, obscur'd, held low.
Do good, be pined, be deedless good, disgrac'd :
Unless we feed on men, we let them fast.
Yet Hero with these thoughts her torch did spend ;
When bees make wax, Nature doth not intend
It shall be made a torch; but we that know
The proper virtue of it, make it so,
And when 'tis made, we light it: nor did Nature
Propose one life to maids, but each such creature
Makes by her soul the best of her true state,
Which without love is rude, disconsolate,
And wants Love's fire to make it mild and bright,
Till when, maids are but torches wanting light,
Thus 'gainst our grief, not cause of grief we fight;
The right of nought is glean'd, but the delight.
Up went she, but to tell how she descended,
Would God she were not dead, or my verse ended.
She was the rule of wishes, sum and end,
For all the parts that did on love depend:
Yet cast the torch his brightness further forth;
But what shines nearest best, holds truest worth.
Leander did not through such tempests swim
To kiss the torch, although it lighted him :
But all his powers in her desires awaked,
Her love and virtues cloth'd him richly naked.
Men kiss but fire that only shows pursue,-
Her torch and Hero, figure show and virtue.
Now at opposed Abydos nought was heard
But bleating flocks, and many a bellowing herd,
Slain for the nuptials; cracks of falling woods;
Blows of broad axes; pourings out of floods.
The guilty Hellespont was mix'd and stain'd
With bloody torrents, that the shambles rain'd;
Not arguments of feast, but shows that bled,
Foretelling that red night that followed.
More blood was spilt, more honours were address'd,
Than could have graced any happy feast;
Rich banquets, triumphs, every pomp employs
His sumptuous hand: no miser's nuptial joys.
Air felt continual thunder with the noise
Made in the general marriage violence:
And no man knew the cause of this expense,
But the two hapless lords, Leander's sire,
And poor Leander, poorest where the fire
Of credulous love made him most rich surmis'd:
As short was he of that himself so priz'd,
As is an empty gallant full of form,
That thinks each look an act, each drop a storm,
That falls from his brave breathings; most brought up
In our metropolis, and hath his cup
Brought after him to feasts; and much palm bears,
For his rare judgment in th' attire he wears:
Hath seen the hot Low-Countries, not their heat,
Observes their rampires and their buildings yet;
And, for your sweet discourse with mouths, is heard
Giving instructions with his very beard:
Hath gone with an ambassador, and been
A great man's mate in travelling, even to Rhene,
And then puts all his worth in such a face,
As he saw brave men make, and strives for grace
To get his news forth: as when you descry
A ship, with all her sail contends to fly
Out of the narrow Thames with winds unapt,
Now crosseth here, then there, then this way rapt,
And then hath one point reach'd; then alters all,
And to another crooked reach doth fall
Of half a birdbolt's shoot; keeping more coil
Than if she danc'd upon the Ocean's toil:
So serious is his trifling company,
In all his swelling ship of vacantry.
And so short of himself in his high thought,
Was our Leander in his fortunes brought,
And in his fort of love that he thought won,
But otherwise, he scorns comparison.
O sweet Leander! Thy large worth I hide
In a short grave; ill favour'd storms must chide
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