The poetical works of Leigh Hunt :: :: University of Virginia Library

Thus pass'd the summer shadows in delight:
Leander came as surely as the night,
And when the morning woke upon the sea,
It saw him not, for back at home was he.
Sometimes, when it blew fresh, the struggling flare
Seem'd out; but then he knew his Hero's care,
And that she only wall'd it with her cloak;
Brighter again from out the dark it broke.
Sometimes the night was almost clear as day,
Wanting no torch; and then, with easy play,
He dipp'd along beneath the silver moon,
Placidly heark'ning to the water's tune.
The people round the country, who from far
Used to behold the light, thought it a star,
Set there perhaps by Venus as a wonder,
To mark the favourite maiden who slept under.

Therefore they trod about the grounds by day
Gently; and fishermen at night, they say,
With reverence kept aloof, cutting their silent way.

But autumn now was over; and the crane
Began to clang against the coming rain,
And peevish winds ran cutting o'er the sea,
Which oft return'd a face of enmity.
The gentle girl, before he went away,
Would look out sadly toward the cold-eyed day
And often beg him not to come that night;
But still he came, and still she bless'd his sight;
And so, from day to day, he came and went,
Till time had almost made her confident.

One evening, as she sat, twining sweet bay
And myrtle garlands for a holiday,
And watch'd at intervals the dreary sky,
In which the dim sun held a languid eye,
She thought with such a full and quiet sweetness
Of all Leander's love and his completeness,
All that he was, and said, and look'd, and dared,
His form, his step, his noble head full-hair'd,
And how she lov'd him, as a thousand might,
And yet he earn'd her still thus night by night,
That the sharp pleasure mov'd her like a grief,
And tears came dropping with their meek relief.

Meantime the sun had sunk; the hilly mark,
Across the straits, mix'd with the mightier dark,
And night came on. All noises by degrees
Were hush'd,—the fisher's call, the birds, the trees,
All but the washing of the eternal seas.

Hero look'd out, and trembling augur'd ill,
The darkness held its breath so very still.
But yet she hop'd he might arrive before
The storm began, or not be far from shore;
And crying, as she stretch'd forth in the air,
“Bless him!” she turn'd and said a tearful prayer,
And mounted to the tower, and shook the torch's flare.

But he, Leander, almost half across,
Threw his blithe locks behind him with a toss,
And hail'd the light victoriously, secure
Of clasping his kind love, so sweet and sure;
When suddenly, a blast, as if in wrath,
Sheer from the hills, came headlong on his path,
Then started off; and driving round the sea,
Dashed up the panting waters roaringly.
The youth at once was thrust beneath the main,
With blinded eyes, but quickly rose again,
And with a smile at heart, and stouter pride,
Surmounted like a god, the rearing tide.
But what? The torch gone out! So long too! See,
He thinks it comes! Ah, yes,—'tis she! 'tis she!
Again he springs; and though the winds arise
Fiercer and fiercer, swims with ardent eyes;
And always, though with ruffian waves dash'd hard,
Turns thither with glad groan his stout regard;
And always, though his sense seems wash'd away,
Emerges, fighting tow'rds the cordial ray.

But driven about at last, and drench'd the while,
The noble boy loses that inward smile:
For now, from one black atmosphere, the rain
Sweeps into stubborn mixture with the main;
And the brute wind, unmuffling all its roar,
Storms;—and the light, gone out, is seen no more.

Then dreadful thoughts of death, of waves heap'd on him,
And friends, and parting daylight, rush upon him.
He thinks of prayers to Neptune and his daughters,
And Venus, Hero's queen, sprung from the waters;
And then of Hero only,—how she fares,
And what she'll feel, when the blank morn appears;
And at that thought he stiffens once again
His limbs, and pants, and strains, and climbs,—in vain.
Fierce draughts he swallows of the wilful wave,
His tossing hands are lax, his blind look grave,

Till the poor youth (and yet no coward he)
Spoke once her name, and yielding wearily,
Wept in the middle of the scornful sea.

I need not tell how Hero, when her light
Would burn no longer, pass'd that dreadful night;
How she exclaim'd, and wept, and could not sit
One instant in one place; nor how she lit
The torch a hundred times, and when she found
'Twas all in vain, her gentle head turn'd round
Almost with rage; and in her fond despair
She tried to call him through the deafening air.

But when he came not,—when from hour to hour
He came not,—though the storm had spent its power,
And when the casement, at the dawn of light,
Began to show a square of ghastly white,
She went up to the tower, and straining out
To search the seas, downwards, and round about,
She saw, at last,—she saw her lord indeed
Floating, and wash'd about, like a vile weed;
On which such strength of passion and dismay
Seiz'd her, and such an impotence to stay,
That from the turret, like a stricken dove,
With fluttering arms she leap'd, and join'd her drownèd love.