Page:Hero and Leander - Marlowe and Chapman (1821).pdf/135

Into her turrets; and her virgin waist
The wealthy girdle of the sea embrac'd:
Till our Leander, that made Mars his Cupid,
For soft love-suits, with iron thunders chid:
Swum to her towns, dissolv'd her virgin zone;
Lead in his power, and made Confusion
Run through her streets amaz'd, that she suppos'd
She had not been in her own walls enclos'd:
But rapt by wonder to some foreign state,
Seeing all her issue so disconsolate:
And all her peaceful mansions possess'd
With war's just spoil, and many a foreign guest
From every corner driving an enjoyer,
Supplying it with power of a destroyer.
So far'd fair Hero in th' expugned fort
Of her chaste bosom; and of every sort
Strange thoughts possess'd her, ransacking her breast,
For that which was not there, her wonted rest!
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.
Love is a golden bubble, full of dreams,
That waking breaks, and fills us with extremes.