Page:Hero and Leander - Marlowe and Chapman (1821).pdf/153

 The virgin tapers that on th' altar stood, When she inflamed them burned 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 numbers 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, intomb'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,