Page:Hero and Leander - Marlowe and Chapman (1821).pdf/162

 Like to a fiery bullet made descent, And from her passage those fat vapours rent, That being not thoroughly rarified to rain, Melted like pitch as blue as any vein; And scalding tempests made the earth to shrink Under their fervor, and the world did think In every drop a torturing spirit flew, It pierc'd so deeply, and it burn'd so blue.

Betwixt all this and Hero, Hero held Leander's picture, as a Persian shield: And she was free from fear of worst success;— The more ill threats us, we suspect the less: As we grow hapless, violence subtle grows, Dumb, deaf, and blind, and comes when no man knows.