Or like a scorched statue made a coal
With three-wing'd lightning; or a wretched soul
Muffled with endless darkness, she did sit:
The night had never such a heavy spirit.
Yet might a penetrating[1] eye well see,
How fast her clear tears melted on her knee
Through her black veil, and turn'd as black as it,
Mourning to be her tears: then wrought her wit
With her broke vow,—her goddess' wrath,—her fame,—
All tools that enginous despair could frame:
Which made her strew the floor with her torn hair,
And spread her mantle piece-meal in the air.
Like Jove's son's club, strong passion struck her down,
And with a piteous shriek enforc'd her swoon:
Her shriek, made with another shriek ascend
The frighted matron that on her did tend:
And as with her own cry her sense was slain,
So with the other it was call'd again.
She rose and to her bed made forced way,
And laid her down e'en where Leander lay:
And all this while the red sea of her blood
Ebb'd with Leander: but now turn'd the flood,
- ↑ an imitating, edit. 1606.
