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danc'd upon the ocean's toil; So serious is his trifling company, In all his swelling ship of vacantry, And so short of himself in his high thought Was our Leander in his fortunes brought, And in his fort of love that he thought won; But otherwise he scorns comparison. O sweet Leander, thy large worth I hide In a short grave! ill-favour'd storms must chide Thy sacred favour; I in floods of ink Must drown thy graces, which white papers drink, Even as thy beauties did the foul black seas; I must describe the hell of thy decease, That heaven did merit: yet I needs must see Our painted fools and cockhorse peasantry Still, still usurp, with long lives, loves, and lust, The seats of Virtue, cutting short as dust Her dear-bought issue: ill to worse converts, And tramples in the blood of all deserts. Night close and silent now goes fast before The captains and the soldiers to the shore, On whom attended the appointed fleet At Sestos' bay, that should Leander meet, Who feign'd he in another ship would pass: Which must not be, for no one mean there was To get his love home, but the course he took. Forth did his beauty for his beauty look, And saw her through her torch, as you behold Sometimes within the sun a face of gold, Form'd in strong thoughts, by that tradition's force That says a god sits there and guides his course. His sister was with him; to whom he show'd His guide by sea, and said, "Oft have you view'd In one heaven many stars, but never yet In one star many heavens till now were met. See, lovely sister! see, now Hero shines, No heaven but her appears; each star repines, And all are clad in clouds, as if they mourn'd To be by influence of earth out-burn'd. Yet doth she shine, and teacheth Virtue's train Still to be constant in hell's blackest reign, Though even the gods themselves do so entreat them As they did hate, and earth as she would eat them." Off went his silken robe, and in he leapt, Whom the kind waves so licorously cleapt, Thickening for haste, one in another, so, To kiss his skin, that he might almost go To Hero's tower, had that kind minute lasted. But now the cruel Fates with Ate hasted To all the Winds, and made them battle fight Upon the Hellespont, for either's right Pretended to the windy monarchy; And forth they brake, the seas mix'd with the sky, And toss'd distress'd Leander, being in hell, As high as heaven: bliss not in height doth dwell. The Destinies sate dancing on the
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