Page:Hero and Leander - Marlowe and Chapman (1821).pdf/63

Rh One evening, as she sat, twining sweet bay And myrtle garlands for a holiday,— She thought with such a full and quiet sweetness Of all Leander's love, All that he was, and said, and look'd, and dared, His form, his step, his noble head full-haired, That the sharp pleasure mov'd her like a grief, And tears came dropping with their meek relief.— Meanwhile the sun had sunk; the hilly mark Across the straits mix'd with the mightier dark, And night came on. All noises by degrees Were hụsh'd,—the fisher's call, the birds, the trees, All—but the washing of the eternal seas. Hero look'd out, and trembling augured ill, The darkness held its breath so very still. But yet she hop'd he might arrive before The storm began, or not be far from shore; she said a tearful pray'r, And mounted to the tower, and shook the torch's flare. But he, Leander, almost half across, Threw his blithe locks behind him with a toss, And hail'd the light victoriously, secure Of clasping his kind love, When suddenly, a blast, as if in wrath, Sheer from the hills, came headlong on his path."

The story now necessarily follows Musæus,