Hero and Leander

See you the towers, that, gray and old,Frown through the sunlight's liquid gold,Steep sternly fronting steep?The Hellespont beneath them swells,And roaring cleaves the Dardanelles,The rock-gates of the deep!Hear you the sea, whose stormy wave,From Asia, Europe clove in thunder?That sea which rent a world, cannotRend love from love asunder!

In Hero's, in Leander's heart,Thrills the sweet anguish of the dartWhose feather flies from love.All Hebe's bloom in Hero's cheek--And his the hunter's steps that seekDelight, the hills above!Between their sires the rival feudForbids their plighted hearts to meet;Love's fruits hang over danger's gulf,By danger made more sweet.

Alone on Sestos' rocky tower,Where upward sent in stormy shower,The whirling waters foam,--Alone the maiden sits, and eyesThe cliffs of fair Abydos riseAfar--her lover's home.Oh, safely thrown from strand to strand,No bridge can love to love convey;No boatman shoots from yonder shore,Yet Love has found the way.--

That love, which could the labyrinth pierce--Which nerves the weak, and curbs the fierce,And wings with wit the dull;--That love which o'er the furrowed landBowed--tame beneath young Jason's hand--The fiery-snorting bull!Yes, Styx itself, that ninefold flows,Has love, the fearless, ventured o'er,And back to daylight borne the bride,From Pluto's dreary shore!

What marvel then that wind and wave,Leander doth but burn to brave,When love, that goads him, guides!Still when the day, with fainter glimmer,Wanes pale--he leaps, the daring swimmer,Amid the darkening tides;With lusty arms he cleaves the waves,And strikes for that dear strand afar;Where high from Hero's lonely towerLone streams the beacon-star.

In vain his blood the wave may chill,These tender arms can warm it still--And, weary if the way,By many a sweet embrace, aboveAll earthly boons--can liberal loveThe lover's toil repay,Until Aurora breaks the dream,And warns the loiterer to depart--Back to the ocean's icy bed,Scared from that loving heart.

So thirty suns have sped their flight--Still in that theft of sweet delightExult the happy pair;Caress will never pall caress,And joys that gods might envy, blessThe single bride-night there.Ah! never he has rapture known,Who has not, where the waves are drivenUpon the fearful shores of hell,Plucked fruits that taste of heaven!

Now changing in their season are,The morning and the Hesper star;--Nor see those happy eyesThe leaves that withering droop and fall,Nor hear, when, from its northern hall,The neighboring winter sighs;Or, if they see, the shortening daysBut seem to them to close in kindness;For longer joys, in lengthening nights,They thank the heaven in blindness.

It is the time, when night and day,In equal scales contend for sway --Lone, on her rocky steep,Lingers the girl with wistful eyesThat watch the sun-steeds down the skies,Careering towards the deep.Lulled lay the smooth and silent sea,A mirror in translucent calm,The breeze, along that crystal realm,Unmurmuring, died in balm.

In wanton swarms and blithe array,The merry dolphins glide and playAmid the silver waves.In gray and dusky troops are seen,The hosts that serve the ocean-queen,Upborne from coral caves:They--only they--have witnessed loveTo rapture steal its secret way:And Hecate seals the only lipsThat could the tale betray!

She marks in joy the lulled water,And Sestos, thus thy tender daughter,Soft-flattering, woos the sea!"Fair god--and canst thou then betray?No! falsehood dwells with them that sayThat falsehood dwells with thee!Ah! faithless is the race of man,And harsh a father's heart can prove;But thee, the gentle and the mild,The grief of love can move!"

"Within these hated walls of stone,Should I, repining, mourn alone,And fade in ceaseless care,But thou, though o'er thy giant tide,Nor bridge may span, nor boat may glide,Dost safe my lover bear.And darksome is thy solemn deep,And fearful is thy roaring wave;But wave and deep are won by love--Thou smilest on the brave!"

"Nor vainly, sovereign of the sea,Did Eros send his shafts to theeWhat time the rain of gold,Bright Helle, with her brother bore,How stirred the waves she wandered o'er,How stirred thy deeps of old!Swift, by the maiden's charms subdued,Thou cam'st from out the gloomy waves,And in thy mighty arms, she sankInto thy bridal caves."

"A goddess with a god, to keepIn endless youth, beneath the deep,Her solemn ocean-court!And still she smooths thine angry tides,Tames thy wild heart, and favoring guidesThe sailor to the port!Beautiful Helle, bright one, hearThy lone adoring suppliant pray!And guide, O goddess--guide my loveAlong the wonted way!"

Now twilight dims the waters' flow,And from the tower, the beacon's glowWaves flickering o'er the main.Ah, where athwart the dismal stream,Shall shine the beacon's faithful beamThe lover's eyes shall strain!Hark! sounds moan threatening from afar--From heaven the blessed stars are gone--More darkly swells the rising seaThe tempest labors on!

Along the ocean's boundless plainsLies night--in torrents rush the rainsFrom the dark-bosomed cloud--Red lightning skirs the panting air,And, loosed from out their rocky lair,Sweep all the storms abroad.Huge wave on huge wave tumbling o'er,The yawning gulf is rent asunder,And shows, as through an opening pall,Grim earth--the ocean under!

Poor maiden! bootless wail or vow--"Have mercy, Jove--be gracious, thou!Dread prayer was mine before!"What if the gods have heard--and he,Lone victim of the stormy sea,Now struggles to the shore!There's not a sea-bird on the wave--Their hurrying wings the shelter seek;The stoutest ship the storms have proved,Takes refuge in the creek.

"Ah, still that heart, which oft has bravedThe danger where the daring saved,Love lureth o'er the sea;--For many a vow at parting morn,That naught but death should bar return,Breathed those dear lips to me;And whirled around, the while I weep,Amid the storm that rides the wave,The giant gulf is grasping downThe rash one to the grave!

"False Pontus! and the calm I hailed,The awaiting murder darkly veiled--The lulled pellucid flow,The smiles in which thou wert arrayed,Were but the snares that love betrayedTo thy false realm below!Now in the midway of the main,Return relentlessly forbidden,Thou loosenest on the path beyondThe horrors thou hadst hidden."

Loud and more loud the tempest ravesIn thunder break the mountain waves,White-foaming on the rock--No ship that ever swept the deepIts ribs of gnarled oak could keepUnshattered by the shock.Dies in the blast the guiding torchTo light the struggler to the strand;'Tis death to battle with the wave,And death no less to land!

On Venus, daughter of the seas,She calls the tempest to appease--To each wild-shrieking windAlong the ocean-desert borne,She vows a steer with golden horn--Vain vow--relentless wind!On every goddess of the deep,On all the gods in heaven that be,She calls--to soothe in calm, awhileThe tempest-laden sea!

"Hearken the anguish of my cries!From thy green halls, arise--arise,Leucothoe the divine!Who, in the barren main afar,Oft on the storm-beat marinerDost gently-saving shine.Oh,--reach to him thy mystic veil,To which the drowning clasp may cling,And safely from that roaring grave,To shore my lover bring!"

And now the savage winds are hushing.And o'er the arched horizon, blushing,Day's chariot gleams on high!Back to their wonted channels rolled,In crystal calm the waves beholdOne smile on sea and sky!All softly breaks the rippling tide,Low-murmuring on the rocky land,And playful wavelets gently floatA corpse upon the strand!

'Tis he!--who even in death would stillNot fail the sweet vow to fulfil;She looks--sees--knows him there!From her pale lips no sorrow speaks,No tears glide down her hueless cheeks;Cold-numbed in her despair--She looked along the silent deep,She looked upon the brightening heaven,Till to the marble face the soulIts light sublime had given!

"Ye solemn powers men shrink to name,Your might is here, your rights ye claim--Yet think not I repineSoon closed my course; yet I can blessThe life that brought me happiness--The fairest lot was mine!Living have I thy temple served,Thy consecrated priestess been--My last glad offering now receiveVenus, thou mightiest queen!"

Flashed the white robe along the air,And from the tower that beetled thereShe sprang into the wave;Roused from his throne beneath the waste,Those holy forms the god embraced--A god himself their grave!Pleased with his prey, he glides along--More blithe the murmured music seems,A gush from unexhausted urnsHis everlasting streams!