Thus far she pleads, but pleading nought avails her,
For Death, her sullen burthen, deigns no heed;
Then with dumb craving arms, since darkness fails her,
She prays to heaven’s fair light, as if her need
Inspired her there were Gods to pity pain,
Or end it,—­but she lifts her arms in vain!

XCIV.

Poor gilded Grief! the subtle light by this
With mazy gold creeps through her watery mine,
And, diving downward through the green abyss,
Lights up her palace with an amber shine;
There, falling on her arms,—­the crystal skin
Reveals the ruby tide that fares within.

XCV.

Look how the fulsome beam would hang a glory
On her dark hair, but the dark hairs repel it;
Look how the perjured glow suborns a story
On her pale lips, but lips refuse to tell it;
Grief will not swerve from grief, however told
On coral lips, or character’d in gold;

XCVI.

Or else, thou maid! safe anchor’d on Love’s neck,
Listing the hapless doom of young Leander,
Thou would’st not shed a tear for that old wreck,
Sitting secure where no wild surges wander;
Whereas the woe moves on with tragic pace,
And shows its sad reflection in thy face.

XCVII.

Thus having travell’d on, and track’d the tale,
Like the due course of an old bas-relief,
Where Tragedy pursues her progress pale,
Brood here awhile upon that sea-maid’s grief,
And take a deeper imprint from the frieze
Of that young Fate, with Death upon her knees.

XCVIII.

Then whilst the melancholy Muse withal
Resumes her music in a sadder tone,
Meanwhile the sunbeam strikes upon the wall,
Conceive that lovely siren to live on,
Ev’n as Hope whisper’d, the Promethean light
Would kindle up the dead Leander’s spright.

XCIX.

“’Tis light,” she says, “that feeds the glittering stars,
And those were stars set in his heavenly brow;
But this salt cloud, this cold sea-vapor, mars
Their radiant breathing, and obscures them now;
Therefore I’ll lay him in the clear blue air,
And see how these dull orbs will kindle there.”

C.

Swiftly as dolphins glide, or swifter yet,
With dead Leander in her fond arms’ fold,
She cleaves the meshes of that radiant net
The sun hath twined above of liquid gold,
Nor slacks till on the margin of the land
She lays his body on the glowing sand.

CI.

There, like a pearly waif, just past the reach
Of foamy billows he lies cast.  Just then,
Some listless fishers, straying down the beach,
Spy out this wonder.  Thence the curious men,
Low crouching, creep into a thicket brake,
And watch her doings till their rude hearts ache.