FROM THE GREEK OF MUSÆUS.
The lamp that saw the lovers side by side In furtive clasp; the swimmer bold o' nights; The close embrace Aurora never spied, Sing Muse! and Sestos, nest of their delights, Where Hero watched, and Eros had his rites Duly performed. My song is of Leander, And lovingly the beacon-lamp requites, Which lured him o'er the ocean's back to wander, Sweet Hero's message-light, love's harbinger and pandar.
Zeus should have placed that signal-light above, (Their love-race ended) 'mid the constellations, And called its name the bridal star of love, As minister of rapture's keen sensations, The cresset, by whose aid they found occasions Of sleepless nights—till blew the fatal blast. Come, Muse! and join with me in lamentations For that clear night, by which love's bidding past, And for Leander's life, extinguished both at last.
Sestos is opposite Abydos, near And neighbour cities—parted by the sea: Love with one arrow scorched a virgin there, And here a youth; the fairest Hero she, The handsome bachelor, Leander, he. Stars of their cities, but resembling each The other. Sestos keeps her memory Where Hero's lamp was wont his way to teach, And for Leander moans Abydos' sullen beach.
Whence grew Leander's passion? Whence again Did the same fire sweet Hero's heart devour? Priestess of Cypris, and of noble strain, Untaught in Hymen's rites, and of love's power Unconscious, Hero in a sea-side tower, An ancient and ancestral pile, was dwelling,— Another Cypris, but a virgin flower, In sensitive white purity excelling, The slander and the touch of license rude repelling.
She went not where the light-foot choir assembled, Shunned ribalds, and the breath that Envy blew, (The fair hate those are fairer,) and she trembled At thought of young Love's quiver,—for she knew His mother favoured every shaft he drew; Prayers to the mother, and with girlish art Cates to the son she offered: nathless flew From the sly urchin's bow the fire-plumed dart Straight to its destined mark, the maiden's trembling heart.
What time came round the Sestian festival, Sacred to Cypris, and her Syrian fere, All who inhabited the coronal Of sparkling isles their way to Sestos steer; Some from Emonia gather far and near; Others from Cyprus; in Cythera now No woman stays; in Sestos now appear The Phrygian, and the dancer on the brow Of spicy Lebanon, as thereto bound by vow.
Thither the virgin-hunters thick repair, As is their wont; a rash and reckless race, Whose prayers are only offered to the fair. There moved our Hero with majestic pace; A star-like glory scattered from her face Sparkles of light, as when the moon discloses Among the stars her cheek's clear-shining grace; Like a twin-rose, one white, one red, reposes On either snow-white cheek the blushing bloom of roses.
You'd say her limbs were rose-buds; for a light Of rose-like hues fell from them; you might see The rose-blush on her feet and ankles white; And from her limbs with every movement free Flowed many graces: they who feigned them three Said falsely, for in Hero's laughing eyes A thousand graces budded. Such was she— Fit priestess of the beauty of the skies, For without question hers was mortal beauty's prize.
Into the young men's minds her beauty entered: Who wished not loveliest Hero for his wife? Where'er she paced the temple, still she centred All eyes, hearts, wishes. "I have seen the strife For beauty's prize in Lacedemon, rife With virgins radiant, with love's dazzling splendour; But never there, nor elsewhere in my life, Saw I a girl so dignified, yet tender; She surely is a Grace: Oh, would Queen Cypris lend her—