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HERO AND LEANDER.
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.
The End of the Fourth Sestyad.
