Hero and Leander and Other Poems | Page 4

ay me! so
wondrous fair,
So young, so gentle, and so debonair,
As Greece

will think, if thus you live alone,
Some one or other keeps you as his
own.
Then, Hero, hate me not, nor from me fly,
To follow swiftly
blasting imfamy.
Perhaps thy sacred priesthood makes thee loath:

Tell me, to whom mad'st thou that heedless oath?"
"To Venus,"
answer'd she; and, as she spake,
Forth from those two tralucent
cisterns brake
A stream of liquid pearl, which down her face
Made
milk-white paths, whereon the gods might trace
To Jove's high court.
He thus replied: "The rites
In which love's beauteous empress most
delights,
Are banquets, Doric music, midnight revel,
Plays, masks,
and all that stern age counteth evil.
Thee as a holy idiot doth she
scorn;
For thou, in vowing chastity, hast sworn
To rob her name
and honour, and thereby
Committ'st a sin far worse than perjury,

Even sacrilege against her deity,
Through regular and formal purity.

To expiate which sin, kiss and shake hands:
Such sacrifice as this
Venus demands."
Thereat she smil'd, and did deny him so,
As put
thereby, yet might he hope for mo;
Which makes him quickly
reinforce his speech,
And her in humble manner thus beseech:

"Though neither gods nor men may thee deserve,
Yet for her sake,
whom you have vow'd to serve,
Abandon fruitless cold virginity.

The gentle queen of love's sole enemy.
Then shall you most resemble
Venus' nun,
When Venus' sweet rites are perform'd and done.
Flint
breasted Pallas joys in single life;
But Pallas and your mistress are at
strife.
Love, Hero, then, and be not tyrannous;
But heal the heart
that thou hast wounded thus;
Nor stain thy youthful years with
avarice:
Fair fools delight to be accounted nice.
The richest corn
dies, if it be not reapt;
Beauty alone is lost, too warily kept."
These
arguments he us'd, and many more;
Wherewith she yielded, that was
won before.
Hero's looks yielded, but her words made war:
Women
are won when they begin to jar.
Thus, having swallow'd Cupid's
golden hook,
The more she striv'd, the deeper was she strook:
Yet,
evilly feigning anger, strove she still,
And would be thought to grant
against her will.
So having paus'd a while, at last she said,
"Who
taught thee rhetoric to deceive a maid?
Ay me! such words as these

should I abhor,
And yet I like them for the orator."
With that,
Leander stoop'd to have embrac'd her,
But from his spreading arms
away she cast her,
And thus bespake him: "Gentle youth, forbear

To touch the sacred garments which I wear.
Upon a rock, and
underneath a hill,
Far from the town, (where all is whist and still,

Save that the sea, playing on yellow sand,
Sends forth a rattling
murmur to the land,
Whose sound allures the golden Morpheus
In
silence of the night to visit us,)
My turret stands; and there, God
knows, I play
With Venus' swans and sparrows all the day.
A
dwarfish beldam bears me company,
That hops about the chamber
where I lie,
And spends the night, that might be better spent,
In vain
discourse and apish merriment:--
Come thither." As she spake this,
her tongue tripp'd,
For unawares, "Come thither," from her slipp'd;

And suddenly her former colour chang'd,
And here and there her eyes
through anger rang'd;
And, like a planet moving several ways
At
one self instant, she, poor soul, assays,
Loving, not to love at all, and
every part
Strove to resist the motions of her heart:
And hands so
pure, so innocent, nay, such
As might have made Heaven stoop to
have a touch,
Did she uphold to Venus, and again
Vow'd spotless
chastity; but all in vain;
Cupid beats down her prayers with his wings;

Her vows about the empty air he flings:
All deep enrag'd, his
sinewy bow he bent,
And shot a shaft that burning from him went;

Wherewith she strooken, look'd so dolefully,
As made Love sigh to
see his tyranny;
And, as she wept, her tears to pearl he turn'd,
And
wound them on his arm, and for her mourn'd.
Then towards the
palace of the Destinies,
Laden with languishment and grief, he flies,

And to those stern nymphs humbly made request,

Both might
enjoy each other, and be blest.
But with a ghastly dreadful
countenance,
Threatening a thousand deaths at every glance,
They
answer'd Love, nor would vouchsafe so much
As one poor word,
their hate to him was such:
Hearken a while, and I will tell you why.

Heaven's winged herald, Jove-born Mercury,
The self-same day
that he asleep had laid
Enchanted Argus, spied a country maid,


Whose careless hair, instead of pearl t'adorn it,
Glister'd with dew, as
one that seem'd to scorn it;
Her breath as fragrant as the morning rose;

Her mind pure, and her tongue untaught to glose:
Yet proud she
was (for lofty Pride that dwells
In towered courts, is oft in shepherds'
cells),
And too-too well the fair vermilion knew
And silver tincture
of her cheeks, that drew
The love of every swain. On her this god

Enamour'd was, and with his snaky rod
Did charm her nimble feet,
and made her stay,
The while upon a hillock down he lay,
And
sweetly on his pipe began to play,
And with smooth speech her fancy
to assay,
Till in his twining arms her lock'd her fast,
And then he
woo'd with kisses; and at last,
As shepherds