r blood;
If through their beauties, like rich work through lawn,
They would set forth their minds with virtues drawn,
In letting graces from their fingers fly,
To still their eyas thoughts with industry:
That their plied wits in number'd silks might 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
Unsavoury fumes, that air with plagues inspir'd;
And then the consecrated sticks she fir'd,
On whose pale frame 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,
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 burn'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
Hero could not but make a history,)
Th' inhabitants of Sestos and Abydos
Did every year, with feasts propitious,
To fair Leander's picture sacrifice:
And they were persons of special price
That were allow'd it, as an ornament
T' enrich their houses, for the continent
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 ease all doubt
Of threatened mischiefs; it would bring asleep
Such as were mad; it would enforce to weep
Most barbarous eyes; and many more effects
This p