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.

* much-rong, edit. 1606, much-wrong'd, edit. 1637

کر

THE END OF THE FIFTH SESTY AD.

HERO AND LEANDER.

SIXTH SESTYAD.

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.

With art do stir, &c. edit. 1637.

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.