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Who, heavy to the death, with a deep sigh,
And hand that lauguish'd, took a robe was nigh,
Exceeding large, and of black cypres made,
In which she sate, hid + from the day in shade,
Even over head and face, down to her feet;
Her left hand made it at her bosom meet,
Her right hand lean'd on her heart-bowing knee,
Wrapp'd in unshapeful folds, 'twas § death to see;
Her knee stay'd that, and that her falling face;
Each limb help'd other to put on disgrace:
No form was seen, where form held all her sight;
But, like an embryon that saw never light,
Or like a scorchèd statue made a coal

With three-wing'd lightning, or a wretched soul
Muffled with endless darkness, she did sit:
The night had never such a heavy spirit.
Yet might a penetrating || eye well see
How fast her clear tears melted on her knee
Through her black veil, and turn'd as black as it,
Mourning to be her tears. Then wrought her wit
With her broke vow, her goddess' wrath, her
fame,-

All tools that enginous despair could frame: Which made her strew the floor with her torn hair,

And spread her mantle piece-meal in the air. Like Jove's son's club, strong passion struck her down,

And with a piteous shriek enforc'd her swoun: ¶
Her shriek made with another shriek ascend
The frighted matron that on her did tend;
And as with her own cry her ** sense was slain,
So with the other it was call'd again.
She rose, and to her bed made forced way,
And laid her down even where Leander lay;
And all this while the red sea of her blood
Ebb'd with Leander: but now turn'd the flood,
And all her fleet of spirits came swelling in,
With child of sail,++ and did hot fight begin
With those severe conceits she too much mark'd:
And here Leander's beauties were embark'd.
He came in swimming, painted all with joys,
Such as might sweeten hell: his thought destroys

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All her destroying thoughts; she thought she felt
His heart in hers, with her contentions melt,
And chide her soul that it could so much err,
To check the true joys he + deserv'd in her.
Her fresh-heat blood cast figures in her eyes,
And she suppos'd she saw in Neptune's skies
How her star wander'd, wash'd in smarting brine,
For her love's sake, that with immortal wine
Should be embath'd, and swim in more heart's-

ease

Than there was water in the Sestian seas.
Then said her Cupid-prompted spirit; "Shall I
Sing moans to such delightsome harmony?
Shall slick-tongu'd Fame, patch'd up with voices
rude,

The drunken bastard of the multitude,
(Begot when father Judgment is away,
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 fruits; even those good deeds
that grow

From other stocks than from th' observèd 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 git,¶
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 shew them way to judge of all things
right.

**

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Before we love, how range we through this

sphere,

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When life is gone, death must implant his terror: Beauty in heaven and earth this grace doth win,
As death is foe to life, so love to error.
It supples 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

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.

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But love, with all joys crown'd, within doth sit:
O goddess, pity love, and pardon it!"

sense

Should do it harm! my love had not gone hence,

Had he been like his place: O blessed place,

Thus spake she ‡ weeping: but her goddess' Image of constancy! Thus my love's grace

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 homeliest 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,

Parts no where, 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,

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 T Elixir-like contracts, though separates!

In her love's beauties, she had confidence
Jove lov'd him too, and pardon'd her offence:

Dear place, I kiss thee, and do welcome thee,
As from Leander ever sent to me."

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 lovers' ends:
Ecte, the goddess of remorse, t†
With vocal and articulate force
Inspires Leucrte, Venus' swan,
T'excuse the beauteous Sestian.
Venus, to wreak her rites' abuses,
Creates the monster Eronusis, !!

things] V. R. "thing." Thus] A. R. "This."

she] Old eds. "he."

§ such as Hero] V. R. "such a Hero," and "such Hero."

she] V. R. "he."

imperance] i. e. command, power.

** counterfeit] i. e. picture.

tt remorse] i. e. pity.

1 Bronusis] V. R. "Eronosus."

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 vow'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.

supples] V. R. "supplies."
tlife] V. R. loue."
had] V. R. "hath."

§ rose] V. R "arose."
an] V. R. "the."

Then put she 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 curlèd 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
Her most heart-piercing parts, that a blest eye
Might see, as it did shadow, fearfully,
All that all-love-deserving paradise:

It was as blue as the most freezing skies;
Near the sea's hue, for T thence her goddess came:
On it a scarf she wore of wondrous frame;
In midst whereof she ** wrought a virgin's face,
From whose each cheek a fiery blush did chase
Two crimson flames, that did two ways extend,
Spreading the ample scarf to either end;
Which figur'd the division of her mind,
Whiles yet she rested bashfully inclin'd,

And stood not resolute to wed Leander;

This serv'd her white neck for a purple sphere, And cast itself at full breadth down her back:

Scarce could she work, but, in her strength of

thought,

She fear'd she prick'd Leander as she wrought,* And oft would shriek so, that her guardian, frighted,

Would staring haste, as with some mischief cited:
They double life that dead things' grief† sustain;
They kill that feel not their friends' living pain.
Sometimes she fear'd he sought her infamy;
And then, as she was working of his eye,
She thought to prick it out to quench her ill;
But, as she prick'd, it grew more perfect still:
Trifling attempts no serious acts advance;
The fire of love is blown ‡ by dalliance.
In working his fair neck she did so grace it,
She still was working her own arms t' embrace it:
That, and his shoulders, and his hands were seen
Above the stream; and with a pure sea-green
She did so quaintly shadow every limb,
All might be seen beneath the waves to swim.

In this conceited scarf she wrought beside
A moon in change, and shooting stars did glide
In number after her with bloody beams;
Which figur'd her affects § in their extremes,
Pursuing nature in her Cynthian body,
And did her thoughts running on change imply;
For maids take more delight, when they prepare,
And think of wives' states, than when wives they

are.

Beneath all these she wrought a fisherman,T
Drawing his nets from forth the ** ocean;
Who drew so hard, ye might discover well'
The toughen'd sinews in his neck did swell:
His inward strains drave tt out his blood-shot
eyes,

There, since the first breath that begun the wrack And springs of sweat did in his forehead rise;
Of her free quiet from Leander's lips,

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Yet was of naught but of a serpent sped,
That in his bosom flew and stung* him dead:
And this by Fate into her mind was sent,
Not wrought by mere instinct of her intent.
At the scarf's other end her hand did frame,
Near the fork'd + point of the divided flame,
A country virgin keeping of a vine,
Who did of hollow bulrushes combine
Snares for the stubble-loving grasshopper,
And by her lay her scrip that nourish'd her.
Within a myrtle shade she sate and sung;
And tufts of waving reeds about her sprung,
Where lurk'd two foxes, that, while she applied
Her trifling snares, their thieveries did divide,
One to the vine, another to her scrip,
That she did negligently overslip;

By which her fruitful vine and wholesome fare
She suffer'd spoil'd,§ to make a childish snare.
These ominous fancies did her soul express,
And every finger made a prophetess,

To shew what death was hid in love's disguise,
And make her judgment conquer Destinies.
O, what sweet forms fair ladies' souls do shroud,
Were they made seen and forced through their
blood;

Unsavoury fumes, that air with plagues inspir'd;
And then the consecrated sticks she fir'd,
On whose pale flame an angry spirit flew,
And beat it down still as it upward grew;
The virgin tapers that on th' altar stood,
When she inflam'd them, burn'd as red as
blood; *

All sad ostents of that too near success, t
That made such moving beauties motionless.
Then Hero wept; but her affrighted eyes
She quickly wrested from the sacrifice,
Shut them, and inwards for Leander look'd,
Search'd her soft bosom, and from thence she

pluck'd

His lovely picture: which when she had view'd,
Her beauties were with all love's joys renew'd;
The odours sweeten'd, and the fires buru'd clear,
Leander's form left no ill object there:
Such was his beauty, that the force of light,
Whose knowledge teacheth wonders infinite,
The strength of number and proportion,
Nature had plac'd in it to make it known,
Art was her daughter, and what human wits
For study lost, entomb'd in drossy spirits.
After this accident, (which for her glory

If through their beauties, like rich work through Hero could not but make a history,)

lawn,

They would set forth their minds with virtues

drawn,

In letting graces from their fingers fly,

To still their eyas || thoughts with industry;

Th' inhabitants of Sestos and Abydos
Did every year, with feasts propitious,
To fair Leander's picture sacrifice:
And they were persons of especial price
That were allow'd it, as an ornament

That their plied wits in number'd silks might ¶T" enrich their houses, for the continent

sing

Passion's huge conquest, and their needles
leading

Affection prisoner through their own-built cities,
Pinion'd with stories and Arachnean ditties.

Proceed we now with Hero's sacrifice:

She odours burn'd,** and from their smoke did rise

stung] V. R. "flung." fork'd] V. R. "forke." twaving V. R. "wauering."

§ spoil'd] "i. e. to be spoil'd." Ed. 1821.

Ieyas] Spelt in the old eds. "yas." The substantive eyas, a young hawk, just taken from the nest,-is of common occurrence But, except in the present passage, and in the following line of Spenser's Hymn of Heavenly Love, I do not recollect to have met with the adjective

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Of the strange virtues all approv'd it held;
For even the very look of it repell'd

All blastings, witchcrafts, and the strifes of
nature

In those diseases that no herbs could cure:
The wolfy sting of avarice it would pull,
And make the rankest miser bountiful;
It kill'd the fear of thunder and of death;
The discords that conceit§ engendereth
'Twixt man and wife, it for the time would cease;
The flames of love it quench'd, and would

increase;

Held in a prince's hand, it would put out
The dreadful'st comet; it would easell all doubt
Of threaten'd mischiefs; it would bring asleep
Such as were mad; it would enforce to weep

*them, burn'd as red as blood] V. R. "them, burn'd as blood," and "them, then they burn'd as blood."

+ success] "i. e. succeeding event." Bd. 1821.
love's] V R. "love."

§ conceit i, e. fancy, imagination.-V. R. "conceits."
euse, V. R. "end."

Most barbarous eyes; and many more effects This picture wrought, and sprung* Leandrian †

sects;

Of which was Hero first; for he whose form, Held in her hand, clear'd such a fatal storm, From hell she thought his person would defend her,

Which night and Hellespont would quickly send her.

With this confirm'd, she vow'd to banish quite
All thought of any check to her delight;
And, in contempt of silly bashfulness,
She would the faith of her desires profess,
Where her religion should be policy,
To follow love with zeal her piety;
Her chamber her cathedral-church should be,
And her Leander her chief deity;

For in her love these did the gods forego;
And though her knowledge did not teach her so,
Yet did it teach her this, that what her heart
Did greatest hold in her self-greatest part,
That she did make her god; and 'twas less naught
To leave gods in profession and in thought,
Than in her love and life; for therein lies
Most of her duties and their dignities;
And, rail the brain-bald world at what it will,
That's the grand atheism that reigns in it still.
Yet singularity she would use no more,
For she was singular too much before;
But she would please the world with fair pretext;
Love would not leave her conscience perplext:
Great men that will have less do for them, still
Must bear them out, though th' acts be ne'er
80 ill;

Meanness must pander be to Excellence ||;
Pleasure atones Falsehood and Conscience:
Dissembling was the worst, thought Hero then,
And that was best, now she ** must live with men.
O virtuous love, that taught her to do best
When she did worst, and when she thought it
least!

Thus would she still proceed in works divine,
And in her sacred state of priesthood shine,
Handling the holy rites with hands as bold,
As if therein she did Jove's thunder hold,
And need not fear those menaces of error,
Which she at others threw with greatest terror.

sprung] i. e. caused to spring, produced. Leandrian] V. R "Leanders." this] V. R. "her.

§ shoul V. R "shall."

Excellence V. R." Excellencie."

atones) i. e reconciles.

** now she] V. R. "she now."

O lovely Hero, nothing is thy sin, Weigh'd with those foul faults other priests are in !

That having neither faiths, nor works, nor

beauties,

T' engender* any 'scuset for slubber'd duties,
With as much countenance fill their holy chairs,
And sweat denouncements 'gainst profane
affairs,

As if their lives were cut out by their places,
And they the only fathers of the graces.

Now, as with settled mind she § did repair
Her thoughts to sacrifice her ravish'd hair
And her torn robe, which on the altar lay,
And only for religion's fire did stay,
She heard a thunder by the Cyclops beaten,
In such a volley || as the world did threaten,
Given Venus as she parted th' airy sphere,
Descending now to chide with Hero here:
When suddenly the goddess' waggoners,
The swans and turtles that, in coupled pheres, I
| Through all worlds' bosoms draw her influence,
Lighted in Hero's window, and from thence
To her fair shoulders flew the gentle doves,—
Graceful Edone ** that sweet pleasure loves,
And ruff-foot Chreste++ with the‡‡ tufted
crown;

Both which did kiss her, though their goddess

frown.

The swans did in the solid flood, her glass,
Proin their fair plumes; §§ of which the fairest

was

Jove-lov'd Leucote, that pure brightness is;
The other bounty-loving Dapsilis. ¶¶

All were in heaven, now they with Hero were: But Venus' looks *** brought wrath, and urgèd fear.

* T' engender] V. R. "T' engendred."

'scuse] i. e. excuse.-V. R "sense," and "feuce."

t denouncements] V. R. "denouncement."

§ she] V. R. they."

volley] V. R. "valley."

¶ coupled pheres] Phere or fere means-a companion, a mate, a wife, or husband. The word seems to be used here, rather awkwardly, for pairs.

** Edone] Gr. dev (pleasure).

↑ Chreste] I know not to what Greek word the derivation of this name can be referred; surely, not to zero. Was not Chapman thinking of the Latin Crista, cristatus?

1 the] V. R. "a.

§§ Proin their fair plumes] V. R. "Proyne their plumes," and "Proine vp their plumes."- Proin, i. e. prune, dress; -the word means properly-to pick out damaged or superfluous feathers.

Leucote] Gr. Auzós (white); Auxórns (whiteness). ¶¶ Dapsilis] Gr. dans (abundant, plentiful). *** looks] V. R. “looke."

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