HERO AND LEANDER. I. OH Bards of old! what sorrows have ye sung, And tragic stories, chronicled in stone, Sad Philomel restor❜d her ravish'd tongue, And transform'd Niobe in dumbness shown; Sweet Sappho on her love for ever calls, And Hero on the drown'd Leander falls! II. Was it that spectacles of sadder plights, Should make our blisses relish the more high? Then all fair dames, and maidens, and true knights, Whose flourish'd fortunes prosper in Love's eye, Weep here, unto a tale of ancient grief, Trac'd from the course of an old bas-relief. III. There stands Abydos! - here is Sestos' steep, Hard by the gusty margin of the sea, Where sprinkling waves continually do leap; A builded gloom shot up into the grey, IV. Lo! how the lark soars upward and is gone; Turning a spirit as he nears the sky, His voice is heard, though body there is none, And rain-like music scatters from on high; But Love would follow with a falcon spite, To pluck the minstrel from his dewy height. V. For Love hath fram'd a ditty of regrets, VI. For ere the golden crevices of morn Which all the variable east adorn, And hang rich fringes on the skirts of night, VII. Hark! how the billows beat upon the sand! Meanwhile their rider, ling'ring on the land, But parting renders time both sad and brief. VIII. "Alas (he sigh'd), that this first glimpsing light, Which makes the wide world tenderly appear, Should be the burning signal for my flight, From all the world's best image, which is here; Shines far more bright than Beauty's self elsewhere." IX. Their cheeks are white as blossoms of the dark, X. Ev'n thus they creep into the spectral grey, True love so often goes XI. For what rich merchant but will pause in fear, To trust his wealth to the unsafe abyss ? |