She was a mother straight, and bore with pain Thoughts that spake straight, and wish'd their mother slain; She hates their lives, and they their own and hers: Such strife still grows where sin the race prefers: 230 Love is a golden bubble, full of dreams, That waking breaks, and fills us with extremes.

She mus'd how she could look upon her sire, And not shew that without, that was intire;[59]

For as a gla.s.s is an inanimate eye, And outward forms embraceth inwardly, So is the eye an animate gla.s.s, that shows In-forms without us; and as Phoebus throws His beams abroad, though he in clouds be clos'd, Still glancing by them till he find oppos'd 240 A loose and rorid vapour that is fit T' event[60] his searching beams, and useth it To form a tender twenty-colour'd eye, Cast in a circle round about the sky; So when our fiery soul, our body's star, (That ever is in motion circular,) Conceives a form, in seeking to display it Through all our cloudy parts, it doth convey it Forth at the eye, as the most pregnant place, And that reflects it round about the face. 250 And this event, uncourtly Hero thought, Her inward guilt would in her looks have wrought; For yet the world's stale cunning she resisted, To bear foul thoughts, yet forge what looks she listed, And held it for a very silly sleight, To make a perfect metal counterfeit, Glad to disclaim herself, proud of an art That makes the face a pandar to the heart.

Those be the painted moons, whose lights profane Beauty's true Heaven, at full still in their wane; 260 Those be the lapwing-faces that still cry, "Here 'tis!" when that they vow is nothing nigh: Base fools! when every moorish fool[61] can teach That which men think the height of human reach.

But custom, that the apoplexy is Of bed-rid nature and lives led amiss, And takes away all feeling of offence, Yet braz'd not Hero's brow with impudence; And this she thought most hard to bring to pa.s.s, To seem in countenance other than she was, 270 As if she had two souls, one for the face, One for the heart, and that they shifted place As either list to utter or conceal What they conceiv'd, or as one soul did deal With both affairs at once, keeps and ejects Both at an instant contrary effects; Retention and ejection in her powers Being acts alike; for this one vice of ours, That forms the thought, and sways the countenance, Rules both our motion and our utterance. 280 These and more grave conceits toil'd Hero's spirits; For, though the light of her discoursive wits Perhaps might find some little hole to pa.s.s Through all these worldly cinctures, yet, alas!

There was a heavenly flame encompa.s.s'd her,-- Her G.o.ddess, in whose fane she did prefer Her virgin vows, from whose impulsive sight She knew the black shield of the darkest night Could not defend her, nor wit's subtlest art: This was the point pierc'd Hero to the heart; 290 Who, heavy to the death, with a deep sigh, And hand that languished, took a robe was nigh, Exceeding large, and of black cypres[62] 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: 300 No form was seen, where form held all her sight; But like an embryon that saw never light, Or like a scorched statue made a coal With three-wing'd lightning, or a wretched soul m.u.f.fled with endless darkness, she did sit: The night had never such a heavy spirit.

Yet might a penetrating[63] 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 310 With her broke vow, her G.o.ddess' wrath, her fame,-- All tools that enginous[64] 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 pa.s.sion 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 called again. 320 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[65] of sail, and did hot fight begin With those severe conceits she too much marked: And here Leander's beauties were embarked.

He came in swimming, painted all with joys, Such as might sweeten h.e.l.l: his thought destroys 330 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 deserved 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. 340 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d of the mult.i.tude (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? 350 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' 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 git, Leander being myself, I still retain it: 360 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 joy[66] 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. 370 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. 380 But love, with all joys crowned, within doth sit: O G.o.ddess, pity love, and pardon it!"

Thus spake she[67] weeping: but her G.o.ddess' 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[68] than for homeliest faces?

Yet she hoped 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; 390 And if her soul, that was a skilful glance Of heaven's great essence, found such imperance[69]

In her love's beauties, she had confidence Jove loved him too, and pardoned 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 s.e.x, dissemble. 400 She viewed Leander's place, and wished he were Turned 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. 410 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."

FOOTNOTES:

[45] Old eds. "improving."

[46] "He calls Phoebus the G.o.d of gold, since the virtue of his beams creates it."--Marginal note in the Isham copy.

[47] The reader will remember how grimly Lady Macbeth plays upon this word:--

"I'll _gild_ the faces of the grooms withal: For it must seem their _guilt_."--ii. 2.

[48] "It is not likely that Burns had ever read _Hero and Leander_, but compare _Tam o' Shanter_--

'But pleasures are like poppies spread, You seize the flower, its bloom is shed, Or like the snow falls in the river, A moment white--then melts for ever!'"

--_Cunningham._

[49] In _England's Parna.s.sus_ the reading is "of men audacious."

[50] Wholly.

[51] Some eds. give "For as she was."

[52] A magical figure formed of intersected triangles. It was supposed to preserve the wearer from the a.s.saults of demons. "Disparent would seem to mean that the five points of the ornaments radiated distinctly one from the other."--_Cunningham._

[53] Old eds. "her."

[54] Heated.

[55] Old eds. "how."

[56] Substance, as opposed to spirit. Cf. note. Vol. i., 203.

[57] Cadiz, which was taken in June 21, 1596, by the force under the joint command of Ess.e.x and Howard of Effingham.

[58] So the Isham copy.--The other old eds. read "townes," for which Dyce gives "town."

[59] Within.

[60] Vent forth.

[61] "Fowl" and "fool" had the same p.r.o.nunciation. Cf. _3 Henry VI._ v.

6:--

"Why, what a peevish _fool_ was he of Crete, That taught his son the office of a _fowl_!

And yet for all his wings the _fool_ was drowned."

The "moorish fool" is explained by the allusion to the lapwing, two lines above. (The lapwing was supposed to draw the searcher from her nest by crying in other places. "The lapwing cries most furthest from her nest."--_Ray's Proverbs._)

[62] A kind of c.r.a.pe.

[63] So the modern editors for an "imitating."

[64] Ingenious. Chapman has the form "enginous" in his translation of the Odyssey, i. 452,

"By open force or prospects _enginous_."

[65] Some modern editors unnecessarily give "With _crowd_ of sail."

[66] Old eds. "joys."

[67] Old eds. "he."

[68] Some eds. give "For such a Hero."

[69] Command.

THE FOURTH SESTIAD.

_The Argument of the Fourth Sestiad._