Page:Hero and Leander (Musaeus) translated by Laurence Eusden (1750).djvu/24

Canst thou, my dear, all this endure for me?
What faithful lover ever lov'd like thee?
For me thy limbs in briny waves to steep,
And bear th' unwholsome stenches of the deep!
Oh! 'tis too much———come to thy Hero's breast,
Forget thy labours, and securely rest.
The lover heard the soft-inviting maid,
And swift like light'ning, what he heard, obey'd:
Both bless'd alike, exalted raptures feel,
What few can fancy, and what none can tell.
This am'rous pair scorn'd vulgarly to wait
For a dull, formal, ceremonious state.
The father no Epithalamium sung,
No mask was seen, no sprightly lyre was strung.
No tuneful bard some sacred numbers said,
Nor nuptial torch adorn'd the nuptial bed.
Silence and darkness, kindred gods, were there;
One pleas'd the youth, and one oblig'd the fair: