The people round the country, who from far To mark the favourite maiden who slept under. But autumn now was over; and the crane The gentle girl, before he went away, way. Would look out sadly toward the cold-eyed day, One evening, as she sat, twining sweet bay And myrtle garlands for a holiday, And watched 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 looked, and dared, His form, his step, his noble head full-haired, And how she loved him, as a thousand might, And yet he earned her still thus night by night, That the sharp pleasure moved her like a grief, And tears came dropping with their meek relief. Meantime the sun had sunk; the hilly mark, Across the straits, mixed with the mightier dark, And night came on. All noises by degrees Were hushed, the fisher's call, the birds, the trees, All but the washing of the eternal seas. Hero looked out, and trembling augured ill, The darkness held its breath so very still. But yet she hoped he might arrive before The storm began, or not be far from shore; And crying, as she stretched forth in the air, "Bless him!" she turned, 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, Of clasping his kind love, so sweet and sure; Sheer from the hills, came headlong on his path; The youth at once was thrust beneath the main 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 dashed hard, Turns thither with glad groan his stout regard; And always, though his sense seems washed away, Emerges, fighting tow'rds the cordial ray. But driven about at last, and drenched the while, The noble boy loses that inward smile. For now, from one black atmosphere, the rain And the brute wind, unmuffling all its roar, And friends, and parting daylight, rush upon him. 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, I need not tell how Hero, when her light Would burn no longer, passed that dreadful night; How she exclaimed, 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 turned 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 shew a square of ghastly white, She went up to the tower, and straining out To search the seas, downwards, and round about, |