Myself the ship of love, I'll hail from far
The torch of Hero, my directing star;
But, dear one! watch, lest blasts should quench the fire,
My gleaming guide of life, and darkling I expire.
Know, that Leander is the name I bear;
The spouse of Hero with the flower-wreath'd hair.-"
Thus fix'd their night-long wedlock's wakeful hour,
They part reluctant: Hero sought her tower;
The youth pass'd darkling forth; but lest he stray,
Noted whence high should blaze the signal ray.
He swimming through th' unfathomable main,
In populous Abydos rose again.
Night came, and cowl'd in sable mantle, ran
And shook deep slumber o'er the eyes of man,
All but Leander's: he long tarrying stood
Where the shores echoed to the roaring flood;
And looked, impatient, till. the angel sign
Of his bright wedlock should, discover'd, shine.
But when with wary eyes th' expectant maid
The rayless gloom of gathering night survey'd,
She show'd the torch on high; Leander gazed:
As the torch kindled, so his passion blazed:
Hastening he rush'd; but, lingering on the shore,
The maddening waves with hoarse reechoing roar
Burst on his ear: he shudder'd as they roll'd,
Then, in high courage, thus his heart consoled :
"Dreadful is love: ungentle is the sea;
Mere waters these; a burning fire is he;
Burn high my heart: the flowing surges brave; Love calls thee on; then wherefore heed the wave?
His beauteous limbs disrobing, while he said,
He roll'd his folded vestments round his head;
Sprang from the shore at one adventurous leap,
And cast his body midst the rolling deep.
Straight towards the gleaming torch he clave the sea;
The ship, the rower, and the helmsman he.
Screen'd with her robe the flame: till now, nigh spent,
Leander climb'd the harbouring shore's ascent.
She on the threshold met, and silent round
Her panting spouse her arms embracing wound.
Foam drizzling from his locks, within the tower
She led him to her secret virgin bower,
Deck'd for a bride: with smoothing hand she skims
The clinging brine-drops from his trickling limbs ;
With rosy-fragrant oils his body laves,
And drowns in sweets the briny-breathing waves:
On high-heap'd couch, then, breathless as he lies,
Entwines around him, and enamour'd cries:
"My husband! great thy sufferings; the salt brine
Of bitter odour has enough been thine,
And roarings of the sea: take now thy rest,
And dry thy reeking toils upon my breast."
Swift at the word he loosed her virgin zone.
Night o'er the scene adorning darkness shed;
Nor e'er the morning in the well-known bed
Beheld the spouse Leander: he again
To opposite Abydos cross'd the main;
With oaring arms the severing billows drove,
And, still with bliss unsated, breathed of love.
So they their strong impelling love conceal'd.
But long they lived not, soon their bliss was o'er, And marriage-rite, that roam'd from shore to shore. For when the winter, with its icy sweep,
In roaring storm upturn'd the whirlpool deep,
Strong blew the chilling hurricanes around,
Lash'd the broad sea, and heaved the gulfs profound.
The sailor dreads the winter ocean's roar,
And runs his bulging bark upon the creeking shore:
But thee, Leander! strong of heart! the main,
With all its horrors, would deter in vain.
"Twas night; when wintry blasts thick-gathering
In darted whirlwind rushing on the shore:
Leander, hopeful of his wonted bride,
Was borne aloft upon the sounding tide.
Wave roll'd on wave: in heaps the waters stood;
Sea clash'd with air; and howling o'er the flood
From every point the warring winds were driven,
And the loud deeps dash'd roaring to the heaven,
Leander struggled with the whirlpool main,
And oft to sea-sprung Venus cried in vain,
And him, the godhead of the watery reign.
None succouring hasten'd to the lover's call,
Nor love could conquer fate, though conquering all.
'Gainst his opposing breast, in rushing heaps,
Burst with swift shock th' accumulated deeps:
Stiff hung his nerveless feet: his hands, long spread
Restless amidst the waves, dropp'd numb'd and dead:
Sudden th' involuntary waters rush'd,
And down his gasping throat the brine-floods gush'd;
The bitter wind now quench'd the light above,
And so extinguish'd fled Leander's life and love.—
But while he linger'd still, the watchful maid,
With terrors wavering, on the tower delay'd.
The morning came-no husband met her view:
O'er the wide seas her wandering sight she threw ;
If haply, since the torch was quench'd in shade,
Her bridegroom o'er the waters, devious, stray'd.
When, at the turret's foot, her glance descried
His rock-torn corse cast upward by the tide!
She rent the broider'd robe her breast around,
And headlong from the tower she fell with rushing
sound!-
Thus on her lifeless husband Hero died,
Nor death's last anguish could their loves divide* :
There is great beauty and power in the above, yet, to my fancy, Mr. Leigh Hunt, in his " original poem," has felt parts with as great relish,— he has identified himself more deeply with the lovers. It is really surprising how much freshness and originality is poured around this hackneyed tale; and this he has accomplished by
* Elton's Specimens of the Classic Poets, vol. iii. p. 331.
mentally rejecting in his rough draught, the fullblown flower of Musæus, and brooding over, and developing anew the primitive seed. In so doing some of the antique air necessarily faded, but this loss is more than compensated to the genuine admirers of the spirit in which our old dramas are written, by the additional force with which all the circumstances are brought home to our modern sympathies. Musæus is more classical-Hunt more romantic.—The present writer neither admires the political doctrines of Mr. Hunt, or the occasional flippancy which disfigure his best works, both prose and verse:— but it is impossible for a candid critic not to perceive the simplicity and truth of his "Hero and Leander." Not that it is free from one or two lines and phrases, which afflict the sensitive mind like a vulgar flourish introduced into Arne's "Water parted from the Sea," or "This Cold Flinty Heart" in Cymon, but they are so immediately redeemed, that they are, as it were, perforce, forgiven and forgotten. I cannot resist a few specimens; the more especially as bring
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