Hero and Leander and Other Poems | Page 8

may I term this,
By which Love sails to
regions full of bliss,)
Yet there with Sisyphus he toil'd in vain,
Till
gentle parley did the truce obtain.
Even as a bird, which in our hands
we wring,
Forth plungeth, and oft flutters with her wing,
She
trembling strove: this strife of hers, like that
Which made the world,
another world begat
Of unknown joy. Treason was in her thought,

And cunningly to yield herself she sought.
Seeming not won, yet won
she was at length:
In such wars women use but half their strength.

Leander now, like Theban Hercules,
Enter'd the orchard of th'
Hesperides;
Whose fruit none rightly can describe, but he
That
pulls or shakes it from the golden tree.
Wherein Leander, on her
quivering breast,
Breathless spoke something, and sigh'd out the rest;

Which so prevail'd, as he, with small ado,
Enclos'd her in his arms,
and kiss'd her too:
And every kiss to her was as a charm,
And to
Leander as a fresh alarm:
So that the truce was broke, and she, alas,


Poor silly maiden, at his mercy was.
Love is not full of pity, as men
say,
But deaf and cruel where he means to prey.
And now she
wish'd this night were never done,
And sigh'd to think upon th'
approaching sun;
For much it griev'd her that the bright day-light

Should know the pleasure of this blessed night,
And them, like Mars
and Erycine, display
Both in each other's arms chain'd as they lay.

Again, she knew not how to frame her look,
Or speak to him, who in
a moment took
That which so long, so charily she kept;
And fain by
stealth away she would have crept,
And to some corner secretly have
gone,
Leaving Leander in the bed alone.
But as her naked feet were
whipping out,
He on the sudden cling'd her so about,
That,
mermaid-like, unto the floor she slid;
One half appear'd the other half
was hid.
Thus near the bed she blushing stood upright,
And from
her countenance behold ye might
A kind of twilight break, which
through the air,
As from an orient cloud, glimps'd here and there;

And round about the chamber this false morn
Brought forth the day
before the day was born.
So Hero's ruddy cheek Hero betray'd,
And
her all naked to his sight display'd:
Whence his admiring eyes more
pleasure took
Than Dis, on heaps of gold fixing his look.
By this,
Apollo's golden harp began
To sound forth music to the ocean;

Which watchful Hesperus no sooner heard,
But he the bright
Day-bearing car prepar'd,
And ran before, as harbinger of light,

And with his flaring beams mock'd ugly Night
Till she, o'ercome with
anguish, shame, and rage,
Dang'd down to hell her loathsome
carriage.
Here Marlowe's work ends. The rest of the poem is by Chapman.
THE THIRD SESTIAD
THE ARGUMENT OF THE THIRD SESTIAD
Leander to the envious light
Resigns his night-sports with the night,


And swims the Hellespont again.
Thesme, the deity sovereign
Of

customs and religious rites,
Appears, reproving his delights,
Since
nuptial honours he neglected;
Which straight he vows shall be
effected.
Fair Hero, left devirginate,
Weighs, and with fury wails
her state:
But with her love and woman's wit
She argues and
approveth it.
New light gives new directions, fortunes new
To fashion our
endeavours that ensue.
More harsh, at least more hard, more grave
and high
Our subject runs, and our stern Muse must fly.
Love's
edge is taken off, and that light flame,
Those thoughts, joys, longings,
that before became
High unexperienc'd blood, and maids' sharp
plights,
Must now grow staid, and censure the delights,
That, being
enjoy'd, ask judgment; now we praise,
As having parted: evenings
crown the days.
And now, ye wanton Loves, and young Desires,

Pied Vanity, the mint of strange attires,
Ye lisping Flatteries, and
obsequious Glances,
Relentful Musics, and attractive Dances,
And
you detested Charms constraining love!
Shun love's stoln sports by
that these lovers prove.
By this, the sovereign of heaven's golden fires,

And young Leander, lord of his desires,
Together from their lover's
arms arose:
Leander into Hellespontus throws
His Hero-handled
body, whose delight
Made him disdain each other epithite.
And so
amidst th' enamour'd waves he swims,
The god of gold of purpose
gilt his limbs,
That, this word _gilt_ including double sense,
The
double guilt of his incontinence
Might be express'd, that had no stay t'
employ
The tresure which the love-god let him joy
In his dear Hero,
with such sacred thrift
As had beseem'd so sanctified a gift;
But,
like a greedy vulgar prodigal,
Would on the stock dispend, and rudely
fall,

Before his time, to that unblessed blessing
Which, for lust's
plague, doth perish with possessing:
Joy graven in sense, like snow in
water, wasts;
Without preserve of virtue, nothing lasts.
What man is
he, that with a wealthy eye
Enjoys a beauty richer than the sky,

Through whose white skin, softer than soundest sleep,
With damask
eyes the ruby blood doth peep,
And runs in branches through her

azure veins,
Whose mixture and first fire his love attains;
Whose
both hands limit both love's deities,
And sweeten human thoughts like
paradise;
Whose disposition silken and is kind,
Directed with an
earth-exempted mind;--
Who thinks not heaven with such a love is
given?
And who, like earth, would spend that dower of heaven,

With rank desire to joy it all at first?
What simply kills our hunger,