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 killed 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;-ah, me, dissembling Fates!

They showed 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 traitorous 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;

On whose curled 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 ravished 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 perfumed must give it light.

She loved it so, she grieved to see it burn, Since it would waste, and soon to ashes turn:

Yet, if it burned 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 loved for good, held high, given show;

Poor virtue loathed for good, obscured, held low:

Do good, be pined, be deedless good, disgraced;

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 should 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 gleaned, 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.

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 mixed and stained

With bloody torrent that the shambles rained;

Not arguments of feast, but shows that bled, Foretelling that red night that followed. More blood was spilt, more honours were addrest,

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

pense,

But the two hapless lords, Leander's sire,
And poor Leander, poorest where the fire
Of credulous love made him most rich sur-
mised:

As short was he of that himself so prized,
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 the attire he wears;

Hath seen the hot Low Countries, not their heat,

Observes their rampires and their building. 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;

They loved Leander so, in groans they brake When they came near him; and such space did take

"Twixt one another, loth to issue on,

But here nought serves our turns: oh, heaven and earth,

How most most wretched is our human birth!

And the poor lover took a little breath: But the curst Fates sate spinning of his death

On every wave, and with the servile Winds Tumbled them on him. And now Hero finds,

By that she felt, her dear Leander's state: She wept, and prayed for him to every Fate;

And every wind that whipped her with her hair

About the face, she kissed and spake it fair,

Kneeled to it, gave it drink out of her eyes To quench his thirst: but still their cruelties

Even her poor torch envied, and rudely beat

The bating flame from that dear food it eat;

Dear, for it nourished her Leander's life, Which with her robe she rescued from their strife:

But silk too soft was such hard hearts to break;

And she, dear soul, even as her silk, faint, weak,

Could not preserve it; out, oh, out it went! Leander still called Neptune, that now rent His brackish curls, and tore his wrinkled face,

Where tears in billows did each other chase; And, burst with ruth, he hurled his marble

mace

At the stern Fates: it wounded Lachesis That drew Leander's thread, and could not miss

The thread itself, as it her hand did hit,
But smote it full, and quite did sunder it.
The more kind Neptune raged, the more he
rased

His love's life's fort, and killed as he embraced :

Anger doth still his own mishap increase; If any comfort live, it is in peace.

Oh, thievish Fates, to let blood, flesh, and sense,

Build two fair temples for their excellence, To rob it with a poisoned influence ! Though souls' gifts starve, the bodies are held dear

In ugliest things; sense-sport preserves a bear:

Greater than they could make, and scorned their smart.

She bowed herself so low out of her tower, That wonder 'twas she fell not ere her hour, With searching the lamenting waves for him:

Like a poor snail, her gentle supple limb Hung on her turret's top, so much downright,

As she would dive beneath the darkness quite,

To find her jewel ;-jewel !-her Leander,
A name of all earth's jewels pleased not her
Like his dear name: "Leander, still my
choice,

Come nought but my Leander! Oh, my voice,

Turn to Leander ! henceforth be all sounds, Accents, and phrases, that show all griefs' wounds,

Analysed in Leander! Oh, black change! Trumpets, do you with thunder of your clange,

Drive out this change's horror! My voice faints:

Where all joy was, now shriek out all complaints !"

Thus cried she; for her mixed soul could tell

Her love was dead: and when the Morning fell

Prostrate upon the weeping earth for woe, Blushes, that bled out of her cheeks, did show

Leander brought by Neptune, bruised and