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. 123 HERO AND LEANDER. CANTO I. OLD is the tale I tell, and yet as young By thinking of our school-books, and the wrongs 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, So might they now have liv'd, and so have died ; Beneath the sun which shines this very hour, There stood of yore--behold it now-a tow'r, |