23
SONG.
Awake Leander, see the skies
Do in the blackest tempest rise;
In Neptune’s watery kingdom
Two lovers shall entombed be;
Whose sad mishap the sea-gods all,
With us lament their funeral:
The cruel ghosts’ revenge to crave,
But fate decrees them to their grave.
We pity lovers that are crost,
And in their highest hopes so lost:
When nearest to their hopes they seem,
They find all but a golden dream ;
Then do cross winds bear away
Their hopes. Leander, prithee stay;
But thee too forward fate drives on,
By love the best of lovers are undone.
Leander hearing this, admired much at it, and found a little heaviness on his mind, however, ho resolved to keep his word. About sunset a mighty tempest arose, the sea swelled in terror, and all seemed a sudden midnight, when, going towards the vessel, he perceived it had broke its cable, and had driven out to sea with the men on board it; he hailed them as loud as he could, but they stood away before the wind, and could not get back. Then he ran about the shore to get another vessel, but could find none; so that seeing a light in Hero’s turret, by which he knew she expected him, he resolved to run any hazard rather than break his word, and so stripping himself to the shirt, and hiding his clothes in the rock, he leaped into the sea, in hopes to overtake the vessel, or find it at the place appointed, and so floated on the waves
