His beams abroad, though he in clouds be clos'd, Still glancing by them till he find oppos'd 240 A loose and rorid vapour that is fit T' event[60] his searching beams, and useth it To form a tender twenty-colour'd eye, Cast in a circle round about the sky; So when our fiery soul, our body's star, (That ever is in motion circular,) Conceives a form, in seeking to display it Through all our cloudy parts, it doth convey it Forth at the eye, as the most pregnant place, And that reflects it round about the face. 250 And this event, uncourtly Hero thought, Her inward guilt would in her looks have wrought; For yet the world's stale cunning she resisted, To bear foul thoughts, yet forge what looks she listed, And held it for a very silly sleight, To make a perfect metal counterfeit, Glad to disclaim herself, proud of an art That makes the face a pandar to the heart. Those be the painted moons, whose lights profane Beauty's true Heaven, at full still in their wane; 260 Those be the lapwing-faces that still cry, "Here 'tis!" when that they vow is nothing nigh: Base fools! when every moorish fool[61] can teach That which men think the height of human reach. But custom, that the apoplexy is Of bed-rid nature and lives led amiss, And takes away all feeling of offence, Yet braz'd not Hero's brow with impudence; And this she thought most hard to bring to pass, To seem in countenance other than she was, 270 As if she had two souls, one for the face, One for the heart, and that they shifted place As either list to utter or conceal What they conceiv'd, or as one soul did deal With both affairs at once, keeps and ejects Both at an instant contrary effects; Retention and ejection in her powers Being acts alike; for this one vice of ours, That forms the thought, and sways the countenance, Rules both our motion and our utterance. 280 These and more grave conceits toil'd Hero's spirits; For, though the light of her discoursive wits Perhaps might find some little hole to pass Through all these worldly cinctures, yet, alas! There was a heavenly flame encompass'd her,-- Her goddess, in whose fane she did prefer Her virgin vows, from whose impulsive sight She knew the black shield of the darkest night Could not defend her, nor wit's subtlest art: This was the point pierc'd Hero to the heart; 290 Who, heavy to the death, with a deep sigh, And hand that languished, took a robe was nigh, Exceeding large, and of black cypres[62] made, In which she sate, hid from the day in shade, Even over head and face, down to her feet; Her left hand made it at her bosom meet, Her right hand lean'd on her heart-bowing knee,