With a mute clasp she welcomed to her home The panting youth, and to her chamber led, While from his hair fast dropt the salt sea-foam: She rubbed his limbs with rose-oil, and then led Her lover to her virgin couch, and said, Embracing him the while, and softly willing "Enough of brine and odours which bred: No bridegroom but thyself was ever willing To run such risk, such toil none else but thou fulfilling.
"No longer lies our joy and us between That envious sea—now lay thee down to rest." Silence was there, and Night drew round her screen; Their nuptial troth was by no minstrel blest; The bridal pair were in no hymn addrest; No choir danced round them; and no torches lightened About the genial bed; no marriage guest Led the gay dance; nor hymeneal heightened The joy, approving it; no parent's smile there brightened.
Silence arranged the couch, and Darkness drew The curtains; paranymph and bridemaid none Had they beside. Aurora ne'er did view Leander lying, when the night was done, In Hero's arms. He was already gone,— Already wishing for the night again. The wife at night, by day a virgin shone. As thought her parents wise; while she was fain, Of night, to welcome him who made their wisdom vain.
Thus they enjoyed awhile their furtive pleasure, He to his bed-mate nightly swimming o'er; But soon their life's bloom fell, and scant their measure Of bridal hours. When came the winter frore, And brought the cold blast and the whirlwind's roar, Sharp gusts the bottom of the deep confounding, And lashing up the main from shore to shore, Whirling and rushing, roaring and rebounding, The watery paths above and shaken depths astounding—
What time a desperate pilot, who no more Amid the waters wild his course could hold, Had run his ship upon a fork o' the shore; Not then the tempest checked Leander bold, For Hero's signal-light her summons told. Oh! cruel, faithless light of love! to scout him On such a night! to plunge him in the cold And hissing waves, that rudely toss and flout him! Why could not Hero sleep, while winter raged, without him?
But love and fate compelled her; light of love, Drawn by desire, she shewed not, but the black Torch-gloom of fate. The winds collected drove Volumes of gusty darts upon the track Of the sea-broken shore; but on the back Of raving ocean lost Leander went. The water stood in heaps; with fearful crack The winds ran counter, and were madly blent, Rushing from every side, in wildest minglement.
Wave upon wave! ocean with ether mixt! Mighty the crash! How could Leander ride on The monstrous whirl? Sore tost, he one while fixt In prayer on Cypris, then on King Poseidon, And e'en the fierce and frantic Boreas cried on, Who then forgot his Atthis. Lover lorn! None helped him, none! Love, whom he most relied on, Averted not his fate; tost, tumbled, torn, By every counter wave he was at random borne.
He can no longer ply his hands or feet; Drench'd with the brine, his strength is failing fast; On him the cruel waves remorseless beat; The lamp is now extinguished by the blast, And with it his young life and love at last: But while the waves his lifeless body drove, How many a glance poor Hero seaward cast! In vain into the gloom her glances rove; Her anxious thoughts a pool of spectred troubles move.
The morning came, nor yet Leander came! Upon the sea's broad back her glance was thrown, If haply, missing that unfaithful flame, He wandered there; but soon she spied him strown A mangled corse below. She tore her gown, And shrieked, and for Leander madly cried, And from the tower fell whizzing headlong down. Thus, on her husband dead sweet Hero died, And who were joined in life, then death did not divide.