Devotion, Order, State, and Reverence, 120 Her shadows were; Society, Memory; All which her sight made live, her absence die. A rich disparent pentacle[52] she wears, Drawn full of circles and strange characters. Her face was changeable to every eye; One way look'd ill, another graciously; Which while men view'd, they cheerful were and holy, But looking off, vicious and melancholy. The snaky paths to each observËd law Did Policy in her broad bosom draw. 130 One hand a mathematic crystal sways, Which, gathering in one line a thousand rays From her bright eyes, Confusion burns to death, And all estates of men distinguisheth: By it Morality and Comeliness Themselves in all their sightly figures dress. Her other hand a laurel rod applies, To beat back Barbarism and Avarice, That follow'd, eating earth and excrement And human limbs; and would make proud ascent 140 To seats of gods, were Ceremony slain. The Hours and Graces bore her glorious train; And all the sweets of our society Were spher'd and treasur'd in her bounteous eye. Thus she appear'd, and sharply did reprove Leander's bluntness in his violent love; Told him how poor was substance without rites, Like bills unsign'd; desires without delights; Like meats unseason'd; like rank corn that grows On cottages, that none or reaps or sows; 150 Not being with civil forms confirm'd and bounded, For human dignities and comforts founded; But loose and secret all their glories hide; Fear fills the chamber, Darkness decks the bride. She vanish'd, leaving pierc'd Leander's heart With sense of his unceremonious part, In which, with plain neglect of nuptial rites, He close and flatly fell to his delights: And instantly he vow'd to celebrate All rites pertaining to his married state. 160 So up he gets, and to his father goes, To whose glad ears he doth his vows disclose. The nuptials are resolv'd with utmost power; And he at night would swim to Hero's tower, From whence he meant to Sestos' forkËd bay To bring her covertly, where ships must stay, Sent by his[53] father, throughly rigg'd and mann'd, To waft her safely to Abydos' strand. There leave we him; and with fresh wing pursue Astonish'd Hero, whose most wishËd view 170 I thus long have foreborne, because I left her So out of countenance, and her spirits bereft her: To look on one abash'd is impudence, When of slight faults he hath too deep a sense. Her blushing het[54] her chamber; she look'd out, And all the air she purpled round about; And after it a foul black day befell, Which ever since a red morn doth foretell, And still renews our woes for Hero's woe;