Page:Hero and Leander - Marlowe and Chapman (1821).pdf/61

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PREFACE.
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At last she comes, ————————
******Bringing a golden torch;—and so with pace
A little slackened, and still rosier face,
Passes their looks; and turning by a bower,
Hastens to hide her in her lonely tower.
The tower o'erlooks the sea; and there she sits
Grave with glad thoughts, and watching it by fits;
For o'er that sea, and by that torch's light,
Her love Leander is to come at night,—
******So she sat fix'd, thinking, and thinking on,
And wish'd, and yet did not, the time were gone;—
And started then, and blushed, and then was fain
To try some work, and then sat down again;
And lost to the green trees with their sweet singers,
Tapp'd on the casement's ledge with idle fingers."

The ensuing evening piece seems written in the glowing "South Countrie," "the land of the beautiful blossoms:"—The last two lines remind one of Chaucer

"Hesper meanwhile, the star with amorous eye
Shot his fine sparkle from the deep blue sky.
A depth of night succeeded, dark but clear,
Such as presents the hollow starry sphere,
Like a high gulf to Heaven: and all above
Seems waking to a fervid fire of love.