To S. T. Coleridge.

It is not with a hope my feeble praise

Can add one moment’s honor to thy own,

That with thy mighty name I grace these lays;

I seek to glorify myself alone:

For that some precious favor thou hast shown

To my endeavor in a bygone time,

And by this token I would have it known

Thou art my friend, and friendly to my rhyme!

It is my dear ambition now to climb

Still higher in thy thought — if my bold pen

May thrust on contemplations more sublime. —

But I am thirsty for thy praise, for when

We gain applauses from the great in name,

We seem to be partakers of their fame.
1.

Oh Bards of old! What sorrows have ye sung,

And tragic stories, chronicled in stone —

Sad Philomel restored her ravish’d tongue,

And transform’d Niobe in dumbness shown;

Sweet Sappho on her love forever calls,

And Hero on the drown’d Leander falls!
2.

Was it that spectacles of sadder plights

Should make our blisses relish the more high?

Then all fair dames, and maidens, and true knights,

Whose flourish’d fortunes prosper in Love’s eye,

Weep here, unto a tale of ancient grief,

Traced from the course of an old bas-relief.
3.

There stands Abydos! — here is Sestos’ steep,

Hard by the gusty margin of the sea,

Where sprinkling waves continually do leap;

And that is where those famous lovers be,

A builded gloom shot up into the gray,

As if the first tall watch-tow’r of the day.
4.

Lo! how the lark soars upward and is gone;

Turning a spirit as he nears the sky,

His voice is heard, though body there is none,

And rain-like music scatters from on high;

But Love would follow with a falcon spite,

To pluck the minstrel from his dewy height.
5.

For Love hath framed a ditty of regrets,

Tuned to the hollow sobbings on the shore,

A vexing sense, that with like music frets,

And chimes this dismal burthen o’er and o’er,

Saying, Leander’s joys are past and spent,

Like stars extinguish’d in the firmament.
6.

For ere the golden crevices of morn

Let in those regal luxuries of light,

Which all the variable east adorn,

And hang rich fringes on the skirts of night,

Leander, weaning from sweet Hero’s side,

Must leave a widow where he found a bride.
7.

Hark! how the billows beat upon the sand!

Like pawing steeds impatient of delay;

Meanwhile their rider, ling’ring on the land,

Dallies with love, and holds farewell at bay

A too short span. — How tedious slow is grief!

But parting renders time both sad and brief.
8.

“Alas!” (he sigh’d), “that this first glimpsing light,

Which makes the wide world tenderly appear,

Should be the burning signal for my flight

From all the world’s best image, which is here;

Whose very shadow, in my fond compare,

Shines far more bright than Beauty’s self elsewhere.”
9.

Their cheeks are white as blossoms of the dark,

Whose leaves close up and show the outward pale,

And those fair mirrors where their joys did spark,

All dim and tarnish’d with a dreary veil,

No more to kindle till the night’s return,

Like stars replenish’d at Joy’s golden urn.
10.

Ev’n thus they creep into the spectral gray,

That cramps the landscape in its narrow brim,

As when two shadows by old Lethe stray,

He clasping her, and she entwining him;

Like trees, wind-parted, that embrace anon —

True love so often goes before ’tis gone.
11.

For what rich merchant but will pause in fear,

To trust his wealth to the unsafe abyss?

So Hero dotes upon her treasure here,

And sums the loss with many an anxious kiss,

Whilst her fond eyes grow dizzy in her head,

Fear aggravating fear with shows of dread.
12.

She thinks how many have been sunk and drown’d,

And spies their snow-white bones below the deep,

Then calls huge congregated monsters round,

And plants a rock wherever he would leap;

Anon she dwells on a fantastic dream,

Which she interprets of that fatal stream.
13.

Saying, “That honied fly I saw was thee,

Which lighted on a water-lily’s cup,

When, lo! the flower, enamor’d of my bee,

Closed on him suddenly and lock’d him up,

And he was smother’d in her drenching dew;

Therefore this day thy drowning I shall rue.”
14.

But next, remembering her virgin fame,

She clips him in her arms and bids him go,

But seeing him break loose, repents her shame,

And plucks him back upon her bosom’s snow;

And tears unfix her iced resolve again,

As steadfast frosts are thaw’d by show’rs of rain.
15.

O for a type of parting! — Love to love

Is like the fond attraction of two spheres,

Which needs a godlike effort to remove,

And then sink down their sunny atmospheres,

In rain and darkness on each ruin’d heart,

Nor yet their melodies will sound apart.
16.

So brave Leander sunders from his bride;

The wrenching pang disparts his soul in twain;

Half stays with her, half goes towards the tide —

And life must ache, until they join again.

Now wouldst thou know the wideness of the wound? —

Mete every step he takes upon the ground.
17.

And for the agony and bosom-throe,

Let it be measured by the wide vast air,

For that is infinite, and so is woe,

Since parted lovers breathe it everywhere.

Look how it heaves Leander’s laboring chest,

Panting, at poise, upon a rocky crest!
18.

From which he leaps into the scooping brine,

That shocks his bosom with a double chill;

Because, all hours, till the slow sun’s decline,

That cold divorcer will be ’twixt them still;

Wherefore he likens it to Styx’ foul tide,

Where life grows death upon the other side.
19.

Then sadly he confronts his twofold toil

Against rude waves and an unwilling mind,

Wishing, alas! with the stout rower’s toil,

That like a rower he might gaze behind,

And watch that lonely statue he hath left,

On her bleak summit, weeping and bereft!
20.

Yet turning oft, he sees her troubled locks

Pursue him still the furthest that they may;

Her marble arms that overstretch the rocks,

And her pale passion’d hands that seem to pray

In dumb petition to the gods above:

Love prays devoutly when it prays for love!
21.

Then with deep sighs he blows away the wave,

That hangs superfluous tears upon his cheek,

And bans his labor like a hopeless slave,

That, chain’d in hostile galley, faint and weak,

Plies on despairing through the restless foam,

Thoughtful of his lost love, and far-off home.
22.

The drowsy mist before him chill and dank,

Like a dull lethargy o’erleans the sea,

When he rows on against the utter blank,

Steering as if to dim eternity —

Like Love’s frail ghost departing with the dawn;

A failing shadow in the twilight drawn.
23.

And soon is gone — or nothing but a faint

And failing image in the eye of thought,

That mocks his model with an after-paint,

And stains an atom like the shape she sought;

Then with her earnest vows she hopes to fee

The old and hoary majesty of sea.
24.

“O King of waves, and brother of high Jove,

Preserve my sumless venture there afloat;

A woman’s heart, and its whole wealth of love,

Are all embark’d upon that little boat;

Nay! — but two loves, two lives, a double fate —

A perilous voyage for so dear a freight.”
25.

“If impious mariners be stain’d with crime,

Shake not in awful rage thy hoary locks;

Lay by thy storms until another time,

Lest my frail bark be dash’d against the rocks:

O rather smooth thy deeps, that he may fly

Like Love himself, upon a seeming sky!”
26.

“Let all thy herded monsters sleep beneath,

Nor gore him with crook’d tusks, or wreath?d horns;

Let no fierce sharks destroy him with their teeth,

Nor spine-fish wound him with their venom’d thorns;

But if he faint, and timely succor lack,

Let ruthful dolphins rest him on their back.”
27.

“Let no false dimpling whirlpools suck him in,

Nor slimy quicksands smother his sweet breath;

Let no jagg’d corals tear his tender skin,

Nor mountain billows bury him in death”; —

And with that thought forestalling her own fears,

She drowned his painted image in her tears.
28.

By this, the climbing Sun, with rest repair’d,

Look’d through the gold embrasures of the sky,

And ask’d the drowsy world how she had fared; —

The drowsy world shone brighten’d in reply;

And smiling off her fogs, his slanting beam

Spied young Leander in the middle stream.
31.

His face was pallid, but the hectic morn

Had hung a lying crimson on his cheeks,

And slanderous sparkles in his eyes forlorn;

So death lies ambush’d in consumptive streaks;

But inward grief was writhing o’er its task,

As heart-sick jesters weep behind the mask.
30.

He thought of Hero and the lost delight,

Her last embracings, and the space between;

He thought of Hero and the future night,

Her speechless rapture and enamor’d mien,

When, lo! before him, scarce two galleys’ space,

His thoughts confronted with another face!
31.

Her aspect’s like a moon, divinely fair,

But makes the midnight darker that it lies on;

’Tis so beclouded with her coal-black hair

That densely skirts her luminous horizon,

Making her doubly fair, thus darkly set,

As marble lies advantaged upon jet.
32.

She’s all too bright, too argent, and too pale,

To be a woman; — but a woman’s double,

Reflected, on the wave so faint and frail,

She tops the billows like an air-blown bubble;

Or dim creation of a morning dream,

Fair as the wave-bleached lily of the stream.
33.

The very rumor strikes his seeing dead:

Great beauty like great fear first stuns the sense:

He knows not if her lips be blue or red,

Nor of her eyes can give true evidence:

Like murder’s witness swooning in the court,

His sight falls senseless by its own report.
34.

Anon resuming, it declares her eyes

Are tint with azure, like two crystal wells

That drink the blue complexion of the skies,

Or pearls outpeeping from their silvery shells:

Her polish’d brow, it is an ample plain,

To lodge vast contemplations of the main.
35.

Her lips might corals seem, but corals near

Stray through her hair like blossoms on a bower;

And o’er the weaker red still domineer,

And make it pale by tribute to more power;

Her rounded cheeks are of still paler hue,

Touch’d by the bloom of water, tender blue.
36.

Thus he beholds her rocking on the water,

Under the glossy umbrage of her hair,

Like pearly Amphitrite’s fairest daughter,

Naiad, or Nereid — or Syren fair,

Mislodging music in her pitiless breast,

A nightingale within a falcon’s nest.
37.

They say there be such maidens in the deep,

Charming poor mariners, that all too near

By mortal lullabies fall dead asleep,

As drowsy men are poison’d through the ear;

Therefore Leander’s fears begin to urge,

This snowy swan is come to sing his dirge.
38.

At which he falls into a deadly chill,

And strains his eyes upon her lips apart;

Fearing each breath to feel that prelude shrill,

Pierce through his marrow, like a breath-blown dart

Shot sudden from an Indian’s hollow cane,

With mortal venom fraught, and fiery pain.
39.

Here then, poor wretch, how he begins to crowd

A thousand thoughts within a pulse’s space;

There seem’d so brief a pause of life allow’d,

His mind stretch’d universal, to embrace

The whole wide world, in an extreme farewell —

A moment’s musing — but an age to tell.
40.

For there stood Hero, widow’d at a glance,

The foreseen sum of many a tedious fact,

Pale cheeks, dim eyes, and wither’d countenance,

A wasted ruin that no wasting lack’d;

Time’s tragic consequents ere time began,

A world of sorrow in a tear-drop’s span.
41.

A moment’s thinking is an hour in words —

An hour of words is little for some woes;

Too little breathing a long life affords

For love to paint itself by perfect shows;

Then let his love and grief unwrong’d lie dumb,

Whilst Fear, and that it fears, together come.
42.

As when the crew, hard by some jutty cape,

Struck pale and panick’d by the billow’s roar,

Lay by all timely measures of escape,

And let their bark go driving on the shore;

So fray’d Leander, drifting to his wreck,

Gazing on Scylla, falls upon her neck.
43.

For he hath all forgot the swimmer’s art,

The rower’s cunning, and the pilot’s skill,

Letting his arms fall down in languid part,

Sway’d by the waves, and nothing by his will,

Till soon he jars against that glossy skin,

Solid like glass, though seemingly as thin.
44.

Lo! how she startles at the warning shock,

And straightway girds him to her radiant breast,

More like his safe smooth harbor than his rock;

Poor wretch, he is so faint and toil-opprest,

He cannot loose him from his grappling foe,

Whether for love or hate, she lets not go.
45.

His eyes are blinded with the sleety brine,

His ears are deafen’d with the wildering noise;

He asks the purpose of her fell design,

But foamy waves choke up his struggling voice;

Under the ponderous sea his body dips,

And Hero’s name dies bubbling on his lips.
46.

Look how a man is lower’d to his grave —

A yearning hollow in the green earth’s lap;

So he is sunk into the yawning wave —

The plunging sea fills up the watery gap;

Anon he is all gone, and nothing seen

But likeness of green turf and hillocks green.
47.

And where he swam, the constant sun lies sleeping,

Over the verdant plain that makes his bed;

And all the noisy waves go freshly leaping.

Like gamesome boys over the churchyard dead;

The light in vain keeps looking for his face:—

Now screaming sea-fowl settle in his place.
48.

Yet weep and watch for him, though all in vain!

Ye moaning billows, seek him as ye wander!

Ye gazing sunbeams, look for him again!

Ye winds, grow hoarse with asking for Leander!

Ye did but spare him for more cruel rape,

Sea-storm and ruin in a female shape!
49.

She says ’tis love hath bribed her to this deed,

The glancing of his eyes did so bewitch her.

O bootless theft! unprofitable meed!

Love’s treasury is sack’d, but she no richer;

The sparkles of his eyes are cold and dead,

And all his golden looks are turn’d to lead!
50.

She holds the casket, but her simple hand

Hath spill’d its dearest jewel by the way;

She hath life’s empty garment at command,

But her own death lies covert in the prey;

As if a thief should steal a tainted vest,

Some dead man’s spoil, and sicken of his pest.
51.

Now she compels him to her deeps below,

Hiding his face beneath her plenteous hair,

Which jealously she shakes all round her brow,

For dread of envy, though no eyes are there

But seals’, and all brute tenants of the deep,

Which heedless through the wave their journeys keep.
52.

Down and still downward through the dusky green

She bore him, murmuring with joyous haste

In too rash ignorance, as he had been

Born to the texture of that watery waste;

That which she breathed and sigh’d, the emerald wave,

How could her pleasant home become his grave!
53.

Down and still downward through the dusky green

She bore her treasure, with a face too nigh

To mark how life was alter’d in its mien,

Or how the light grew torpid in his eye,

Or how his pearly breath, unprison’d there,

Flew up to join the universal air.
54.

She could not miss the throbbings of his heart,

Whilst her own pulse so wanton’d in its joy;

She could not guess he struggled to depart,

And when he strove no more, the hapless boy!

She read his mortal stillness for content,

Feeling no fear where only love was meant.
55.

Soon she alights upon her ocean-floor,

And straight unyokes her arms from her fair prize;

Then on his lovely face begins to pore,

As if to glut her soul; — her hungry eyes

Have grown so jealous of her arms’ delight;

It seems she hath no other sense but sight.
56.

But O sad marvel! O most bitter strange!

What dismal magic makes his cheek so pale?

Why will he not embrace — why not exchange

Her kindly kisses; — wherefore not exhale

Some odorous message from life’s ruby gates,

Where she his first sweet embassy awaits?
57.

Her eyes, poor watchers, fix’d upon his looks,

Are grappled with a wonder near to grief,

As one, who pores on undecipher’d books,

Strains vain surmise, and dodges with belief;

So she keeps gazing with a mazy thought,

Framing a thousand doubts that end in nought.
58.

Too stern inscription for a page so young,

The dark translation of his look was death!

But death was written in an alien tongue,

And learning was not by to give it breath;

So one deep woe sleeps buried in its seal,

Which Time, untimely, hasteth to reveal.
59.

Meanwhile she sits unconscious of her hap,

Nursing Death’s marble effigy, which there

With heavy head lies pillow’d in her lap,

And elbows all unhinged; — his sleeking hair

Creeps o’er her knees, and settles where his hand

Leans with lax fingers crook’d against the sand;
60.

And there lies spread in many an oozy trail,

Like glossy weeds hung from a chalky base,

That shows no whiter than his brow is pale;

So soon the wintry death had bleach’d his face

Into cold marble — with blue chilly shades,

Showing wherein the freezy blood pervades.
61.

And o’er his steadfast cheek a furrow’d pain

Hath set, and stiffened like a storm in ice,

Showing by drooping lines the deadly strain

Of mortal anguish; — yet you might gaze twice

Ere Death it seem’d, and not his cousin, Sleep,

That through those creviced lids did underpeep.
62.

But all that tender bloom about his eyes,

Is Death’s own violets, which his utmost rite

It is to scatter when the red rose dies;

For blue is chilly, and akin to white:

Also he leaves some tinges on his lips,

Which he hath kiss’d with such cold frosty nips.
63.

“Surely,” quoth she, “he sleeps, the senseless thing,

Oppress’d and faint with toiling in the stream!”

Therefore she will not mar his rest, but sing

So low, her tune shall mingle with his dream;

Meanwhile, her lily fingers task to twine

His uncrispt locks uncurling in the brine.
64.

“O lovely boy!”— thus she attuned her voice —

“Welcome, thrice welcome, to a sea-maid’s home,

My love-mate thou shalt be, and true heart’s choice;

How have I long’d such a twin-self should come —

A lonely thing, till this sweet chance befell,

My heart kept sighing like a hollow shell.”
65.

“Here thou shalt live, beneath this secret dome,
............