Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HERO AND LEANDER: LEANDER'S DEATH, by GRAMMATICUS MUSAEUS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HERO AND LEANDER: LEANDER'S DEATH, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The time was night, when most the violent breathing winds
Last Line: And the joy of love together in life's last separation.
Subject(s): Death; Hero And Leander; Dead, The


THE time was night, when most the violent breathing winds
Hurl forth their cries in stormy blasts, while with one strength
They fall in headlong force upon the shores of the sea.
On such a night Leander, moved by his heart's desire
For the maid he knew in love, was borne on the shrieking waste,
On the mighty back of the sea while wave was rolled on wave,
While the waters in tumult gathered and sky was merged with sea,
While on all sides the rising whine of striving winds
As East with West contended, as South to North proclaimed
Its mighty menace, was heard with the sea's unending thunder.
Leander sore distressed amid the eddying waters
Found them inexorable, though many a time he prayed
To Aphrodite the ocean goddess, and many a time
To lord Poseidon himself, the ruler of the sea;
Yet no help came, nor even Love could stay Fate's hand.
But dragged and buffeted by the deadly swirling waves
He was carried hither and thither until his thrusting limbs
Faltered and failed, and the restless strokes of his hands
Availed him nothing. Then by its own huge strength the sea
Poured down his throat; and of the constraining surge he drank,
Quenching no thirst -- but life; and as the cruel wind
Stole from the unsteadfast lamp its light, so from Leander
In this distress it took the warmth of life and love. . . .
Hero with fierce reproach upbraided the heartless winds
As now in vision she saw Leander tarrying still
In the long delay of death; and yet with unwavering watch
She kept in storm of sorrow her troubled vigil,
And saw the morning break -- and still saw not her lover.
Everywhere over the sea's wide plains with straining eyes
She searched for sight of him, lest perchance his way was lost
When the light of her lamp was gone. And when she saw him dead,
Torn by the rocks and lying at her tower's foundation,
About her breast she tore the wondrous woven mantle
And from the sheer crag plunged in hurtling headlong fall
To find with her dead love a death among the waves,
And the joy of love together in life's last separation.





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