sence, found such imperance[69]
In her love's beauties, she had confidence
Jove loved him too, and pardoned her offence:
Beauty in heaven and earth this grace doth win,
It supples rigour, and it lessens sin.
Thus, her sharp wit, her love, her secrecy,
Trooping together, made her wonder why
She should not leave her bed, and to the temple;
Her health said she must live; her sex, dissemble. 400
She viewed Leander's place, and wished he were
Turned to his place, so his place were Leander.
"Ay me," said she, "that love's sweet life and sense
Should do it harm! my love had not gone hence
Had he been like his place: O blessed place,
Image of constancy! Thus my love's grace
Parts nowhere, but it leaves something behind
Worth observation: he renowns his kind:
His motion is, like heaven's, orbicular,
For where he once is, he is ever there. 410
This place was mine; Leander, now 'tis thine;
Thou being myself, then it is double mine,
Mine, and Leander's mine, Leander's mine.
O, see what wealth it yields me, nay, yields him!
For I am in it, he for me doth swim.
Rich, fruitful love, that, doubling self estates,
Elixir-like contracts, though separates!
Dear place, I kiss thee, and do welcome thee,
As from Leander ever sent to me."
FOOTNOTES:
[45] Old eds. "improving."
[46] "He calls Phoebus the god of gold, since the virtue of his beams
creates it."--Marginal note in the Isham copy.
[47] The reader will remember how grimly Lady Macbeth plays upon this
word:--
"I'll _gild_ the faces of the grooms withal:
For it must seem their _guilt_."--ii. 2.
[48] "It is not likely that Burns had ever read _Hero and Leander_, but
compare _Tam o' Shanter_--
'But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed,
Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white--then melts for ever!'"
--_Cunningham._
[49] In _England's Parnassus_ the reading is "of men audacious."
[50] Wholly.
[51] Some eds. give "For as she was."
[52] A magical figure formed of intersected triangles. It was supposed
to preserve the wearer from the assaults of demons. "Disparent would
seem to mean that the five points of the ornaments radiated distinctly
one from the other."--_Cunningham._
[53] Old eds. "her."
[54] Heated.
[55] Old eds. "how."
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