us 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 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,
And them together, would bring proofs of duty;
And if her soul, that was a skillful 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 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 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 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,
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 gr