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Awhile her lord, with manly deference, stood

Wrapt in the sweetness of that angel mood;

Then stooped, and on her brow his soul impress'd,

And at the altar thus the bride was dress'd.

HERO AND LEANDER:

A STORY IN TWO CANTOS.

123

HERO AND LEANDER.

CANTO I.

OLD is the tale I tell, and yet as young
And warm with life as ever minstrel sung:
Two lovers fill it,-two fair shapes-two souls
Sweet as the last, for whom the death-bell tolls:
What matters it how long ago, or where
They liv'd, or whether their young locks of hair,
Like English hyacinths, or Greek, were curled?
We hurt the stories of the antique world

By thinking of our school-books, and the wrongs
Done them by pedants and fantastic songs,

Or sculptures, which from Roman "studios" thrown,

Turn back Deucalion's flesh and blood to stone.

Truth is for ever truth, and love is love;

The bird of Venus is the living dove.

Sweet Hero's eyes, three thousand years ago,

Were made precisely like the best we know,

Look'd the same looks, and spoke no other Greek Than eyes of honey-moons begun last week.

Alas! and the dread shock that stunn'd her brow Strain'd them as wide as any wretch's now.

I never think of poor Leander's fate,

And how he swam, and how his bride sat late,
And watch'd the dreadful dawning of the light,
But as I would of two that died last night.

So might they now have liv'd, and so have died ;
The story's heart, to me, still beats against its side.

Beneath the sun which shines this very hour, There stood of yore--behold it now-a tow'r,

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