Trifling attempts no serious acts advance; The fire of love is blown by dalliance. In working his fair neck she did so grace it, She still was working her own arms t' embrace it. That, and his shoulders, and his hands were seen Above the stream; and with a pure sea-green She did so quaintly shadow every limb, All might be seen beneath the waves to swim. In this conceited scarf she wrought beside A moon in change, and shooting stars did glide In number after her with bloody beams; Which figur'd her affects in their extremes, Pursuing nature in her Cynthian body, And did her thoughts running on change imply; For maids take more delight, when they prepare, And think of wives' states, than when wives they are. Beneath all these she wrought a fisherman, Drawing his nets from forth the ocean; Who drew so hard, ye might discover well The toughen'd sinews in his neck did swell: His inward strains drave out his blood-shot eyes And springs of sweat did in his forehead rise; Yet was of naught but of a serpent sped, That in his bosom flew and stung him dead: And this by Fate into her mind was sent, Not wrought by mere instinct of her intent. At the scarf's other end her hand did frame, Near the fork'd point of the divided flame, A country virgin keeping of a vine, Who did of hollow bulrushes combine Snares for the stubble-loving grasshopper, And by her lay her scrip that nourish'd her. Within a myrtle shade she sate and sung; And tufts of waving reeds about her sprung Where lurk'd two foxes, that, while she applied Her trifling snares, their thieveries did divide, One to the vine, another to her scrip, That she did negligently overslip; By which her fruitful vine and wholesome fare She suffer'd spoil'd, to make a childish snare. These ominous fancies did her soul express, And every finger made a prophetess, To show what death was hid in love's disguise, And make her judgment conquer Destinies. O, what sweet forms fair ladies' souls do shroud, Were they made seen and forced through their blood; If through their beauties, like rich work through lawn, They would set forth their minds with virtues drawn, In letting graces from their fingers fly, To still their eyas thoughts with industry: That their plied wits in number'd silks might sing Passion's huge conquest, and their needles leading Affection prisoner through their own-built cities, Pinion'd with stories and Arachnean ditties. Proceed we now with Hero's sacrifice: She odours burn'd, and from their smoke did rise Unsavoury fumes, that air with plagues inspir'd; And then the consecrated sticks she fir'd, On whose pale frame an angry spirit flew, And beat it down still as it upward grew; The virgin tapers that on th' altar stood, When she inflam'd them, burn'd as red as blood: All sad ostents of that too near success, That made such moving beauties motionless. Then Hero wept; but her affrighted eyes She quickly wrested from the sacrifice, Shut them, and inwards for Leander look'd.