'T was night; when wintry blasts thick-gathering roar In darted whirlwind rushing on the shore: Leander, hopeful of his wonted bride,
Was borne aloft upon the sounding tide.
Wave rolled on wave: in heaps the waters stood;
Sea clashed with air; and, howling o'er the flood,
From every point the warring winds were driven, .
And the loud deeps dashed 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 succoring hastened to the lover's call,
Nor Love could conquer Fate, though conquering all.
'Gainst his opposing breast, in rushing heaps,
Burst with swift shock the accumulated deeps:
Stiff hung his nerveless feet: his hands, long spread
Restless amidst the waves, dropped numbed and
dead:
Sudden the involuntary waters rushed,
And down his gasping throat the brine-floods gushed;
The bitter wind now quenched the light above,
And, so extinguished, fled Leander's life and love.
But while he lingered still, the watchful maid,
With terrors wavering, on the tower delayed.
The morning came, no husband met her view:
O'er the wide seas her wandering sight she threw :
If haply, since the torch was quenched in shade,
Her bridegroom o'er the waters, devious, strayed.
When, at the turret's foot, her glance described
His rock-torn corse cast upward by the tide,
She rent the broidered 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.
HE winds are high on Helle's wave,
As on that night of stormy water,
When Love, who sent, forgot to save
The young, the beautiful, the brave,
The lonely hope of Sestos' daughter.
O, when alone along the sky
Her turret-torch was blazing high,
Though rising gale and breaking foam
And shrieking sea-birds warned him home
And clouds aloft and tides below,
With signs and sounds, forbade to go,
He could not see, he would not hear,
Or sound or sign foreboding fear;
His eye but saw that light of love,
The only star it hailed above;
His ear but rang with Hero's song,
"Ye waves, divide not lovers long!'
That tale is old, but love anew
May nerve young hearts to prove as true.
The winds are high, and Helle's tide
Rolls darkly heaving to the main;
And night's descending shadows hide
That field with blood bedewed in vain,
The desert of old Priam's pride;
The tombs, sole relics of his reign,
save immortal dreams that could beguile The blind old man of Scio's rocky isle!
O yet, for there my steps have been!
These feet have pressed the sacred shore,
These limbs that buoyant wave hath borne,
Minstrel! with thee to muse, to mourn,
To trace again those fields of yore,
Believing every hillock green
Contains no fabled hero's ashes,
And that around the undoubted scene
Thine own "broad Hellespont" still dashes,
Be long my lot! and cold were he
Who there could gaze denying thee!
Crete (Candia), the Island.
IPPOLYTA. I was with Hercules, and Cadmus,
When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear
With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear
Such gallant chiding; for, besides the groves,
The skies, the fountains, every region near
Seem'd all one mutual cry: I never heard
So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.
THESEUS. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
So flew'd, so sanded; and their heads are hung
With ears that sweep away the morning dew;
Crook-kneed, and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls;
Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells,
Each under each. A cry more tunable
Was never halloo'd to, nor cheer'd with horn,
In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly:
ETERNAL powers! what ruins from afar
Mark the fell track of desolating war:
Here arts and commerce with auspicious reign
Once breathed sweet influence on the happy plain :
While o'er the lawn, with dance and festive song,
Young Pleasure led the jocund hours along:
In gay luxuriance Ceres too was seen
To crown the valleys with eternal green:
For wealth, for valor, courted and revered,
What Albion is, fair Candia then appeared.
Ah! who the flight of ages can revoke?
The free-born spirit of her sons is broke,
They bow to Ottoman's imperious yoke.
No longer fame their drooping heart inspires,
For stern oppression quenched its genial fires:
Though still her fields, with golden harvests crowned,
Supply the barren shores of Greece around,
Sharp penury afflicts these wretched isles,
There hope ne'er dawns, and pleasure never smiles;
The vassal wretch contented drags his chain,
And hears his famished babes lament in vain.
These eyes have seen the dull reluctant soil
A seventh year mock the weary laborer's toil.
No blooming Venus, on the desert shore,
Now views with triumph captive gods adore;
No lovely Helens now with fatal charms
Excite the avenging chiefs of Greece to arms;
No fair Penelopes enchant the eye,
For whom contending kings were proud to die;
Here sullen beauty sheds a twilight ray,
While sorrow bids her vernal bloom decay;
Those charms, so long renowned in classic strains,
Had dimly shone on Albion's happier plains!
The sun's bright orb, declining all serene,
Now glanced obliquely o'er the woodland scene;
Creation smiles around; on every spray
The warbling birds exalt their evening lay;
Blithe skipping o'er yon hill, the fleecy train
Join the deep chorus of the lowing plain;
The golden lime and orange there were seen
On fragrant branches of perpetual green;
The crystal streams that velvet meadows lave,
To the green ocean roll with chiding wave.
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