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

rise!

Now the bright marygolds, that deck the skies,
Phœbus' 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!

Rise, virgins! let fair nuptial loves infold Your fruitless breasts: the maidenheads ye hold 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 Το 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 staid ;
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 to' increase the day.

HERO AND LEANDER.

SIXTH SESTYAD.

The Argument of the Sixth Zestyad.

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.