And, gossip-like, says because others say,
Takes news as if it were too hot to eat,
And spits it slavering forth for dog-fees meat,)
Make me, for forging a fantastic vow,
Presume to bear what makes grave matrons bow?
Good vows are never broken with good deeds,
For then good deeds were bad: vows are but seeds,
And good deeds fruit; even those good deeds that grow
From other stocks than from th' observed vow.
That is a good deed that prevents a bad;
Had I not yielded, slain myself I had.
Hero Leander is, Leander Hero;
Such virtue love hath to make one of two.
If, then, Leander did my maidenhead get,
Leander being myself, I still retain it.
We break chaste vows when we live loosely ever,
But bound as we are, we live loosely never.
Two constant lovers being join'd in one,
Yielding to one another, yield to none.
We know not how to vow till love unblind us,
And vows made ignorantly never bind us.
Too true it is, that, when 'tis gone, men hate
The joys as vain they took in love's estate:
But that's since they have lost the heavenly light
Should show them way to judge of all things right.
When life is gone, death must implant his terror,
As death is foe to life, so love to error.
Before we love, how range we through this sphere,
Searching the sundry fancies hunted here!
Now with desire of wealth transported quite
Beyond our free humanity's delight;
Now with ambition climbing falling towers,
Whose hope to scale, our fear to fall devours;
Now rapt with pastimes, pomp, all joys impure:
In things without us no delight is sure.
But love, with all joys crown'd, within doth sit:
O Goddess, pity love, and pardon it!"
Thus spake she weeping: but her Goddess' ear
Burn'd with too stern a heat, and would not hear.
Ay me! hath heaven's strait fingers no more graces
For such as Hero than for homliest faces?
Yet she hop'd well, and in her sweet conceit
Weighing her arguments, she thought them weight,
And that the logic of Leander's beauty,
And them together, would bring proofs of duty;
And if her soul, that was a skilful glance
Of heaven's great essence, found such imperance
In her love's beauties, she had confidence
Jove lov'd him too, and pardon'd her offence:
Beauty in heaven and earth this grace doth win,
It supplies rigour, and it lessens sin.
Thus, her sharp wit, her love, her secrecy,
Trooping together, made her wonder why
She should not leave her bed, and to the Temple?
Her health said she must live; her sex, dissemble.
She view'd Leander's place, and wish'd he were
Turn'd to his place, so his place were Leander.
"Ay me," said she, "that love's sweet life and sense
Should do it harm! my love had not gone hence,
Had he been like his place: O blessed place,
Image of Constancy! Thus my love's grace
Parts nowhere, but it leaves something behind
Worth observation: he renowns his kind:
His motion is, like heaven's, orbicular,
For where he once is, he is ever there.
This place was mine; Leander, now 'tis thine,
Thou being myself, then it is double mine,
Mine, and Leander's mine, Leander's mine.
O, see what wealth it yields me, nay, yields him!
For I am in it, he for me doth swim.
Rich, fruitful love, that, doubling self estates,
Elixir-like contracts, though separates!
Dear place, I kiss thee, and do welcome thee,
As from Leander ever sent to me."
The end of the Third Sestiad.
THE FOURTH SESTIAD
The Argument of the Fourth Sestiad.
Hero, in sacred habit deckt,
Doth private sacrifice effect.
Her scarf's description, wrought by Fate;
Ostents that threaten her estate;
The strange, yet physical, events,
Leander's counterfeit presents.
In thunder Cyprides descends,
Presaging both the lover's ends:
Ecte, the goddess of remorse,
With vocal and articulate force
Inspires Leucote, Venus' swan,
T'excuse the beauteous Sestian.
Venus, to wreak her rites' abuses,
Creates the monster Eronusis,
Inflaming Hero's sacrifice
With lightning darted from her eyes;
And thereof springs the painted beast
That ever since taints every breast.
Now from Leander's place she rose, and found
Her hair and rent robe scatter'd on the ground;
Which taking up, she every piece did lay
Upon an Altar, where in youth of day
She us'd t' exhibit private Sacrifice:
Those would she offer to the Deities
Of her fair Goddess and her powerful son,
As relics of her late-felt passion;
And in that holy sort she yow'd to end them,
In hope her violent fancies, that did rend them,
Would as quite fade in her love's holy fire,
As they should in the flames she meant t' inspire.
Then she put on all her religious weeds,
That deck'd her in her secret sacred deeds;
A crown of icicles, that sun nor fire
Could ever melt, and figur'd chaste desire;
A golden star shin'd in her naked breast,
In honour of the Queen-light of the East.
In her right hand she held a silver wand,
On whose bright top Peristera did stand,
Who was a nymph, but now transform'd a dove,
And in her life was dear in Venus' love;
And for her sake she ever since that time
Choos'd doves to draw her Coach through heaven's
blue clime.
Her plenteous hair in curled billows swims
On her bright shoulder: her harmonious limbs
Sustain'd no more but a most subtile veil,
That hung on them, as it durst not assail
Their different concord: for the weakest air
Could raise it swelling from her beauties fair;
Nor did it cover, but adumbrate only
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