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Here Beauty's day doth never cease,

Day is abstracted here,

And varied in a triple sphere.

Hero, Alcmane, Mya, so outshine thee,

Ere thou come here let Thetis thrice refine thee.

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Rise, youths! Love's right claims more than banquets; rise!

Now the bright marygolds, that deck the skies,
Phoebus' celestial flowers, that, contrary
To his flowers here, ope when he shuts his eye,
And shuts when he doth open, crown your sports:
Now love in night, and night in love exhorts
Courtship and dances: all your parts employ,
And suit Night's rich expansure with your joy;

Love paints his longings in sweet virgins' eyes: Rise, youths! Love's right claims more than banquets; rise!

ye hold

Rise, virgins! let fair nuptial loves infold Your fruitless breasts: the maidenheads Are not your own alone, but parted are, Part in disposing them your parents' share, And that a third part is: so must you save Your loves a third, and you your thirds must have. Love paints his longings in sweet virgins' eyes: Rise, youths! Love's right claims more than banquets; rise!

Herewith the amorous spirit, that was so kind
To Teras' hair, and comb'd it down with wind,
Still as it, comet-like, brake from her brain,
Would needs have Teras gone, and did refrain
To blow it down: which staring up, dismay'd
The timorous feast, and she no longer stay'd;
But bowing to the bridegroom and the bride,
Did like a shooting exhalation glide

Out of their sights: the turning of her back
Made them all shriek, it look'd so ghastly black.
O hapless Hero! that most hapless cloud
Thy soon succeeding tragedy foreshow'd.-
Thus all the nuptial crew to joys depart,

But much wrung Hero stood Hell's blackest dart:
Whose wound because I grieve so to display,
I use digressions thus t'increase the day.

HERO AND LEANDER.

THE ARGUMENT OF THE SIXTH SESTYAD.

Leucote flies to all the winds,

And from the Fates their outrage blinds,
That Hero and her love may meet.
Leander, with Love's complete fleet
Mann'd in himself, puts forth to seas,
When straight the ruthless Destinies,
With Até, stir the winds to war
Upon the Hellespont: their jar
Drowns poor Leander. Hero's eyes,
Wet witnesses of his surprise,

Her torch blown out: grief casts her down
Upon her love, and both doth drown.
In whose just ruth the God of Seas
Transforms them to th' Acanthides.

HERO AND LEANDER.

THE SIXTH SESTYAD.

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;

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