Hero – Her Love
But when
Heroical
Leander swam across
Swift Hellespont to claim the love
Of Hero for his own and prove
Faith, in its sacred cause, He’d sworn
Was stoical: To make her wife
What then?. And consummate, in bliss,
—> His passion’s sole desire. So time
She spurned And time again, with a sublime
His earnest pleas Resolve to taste her kiss,
To let him stay with her. He risked his life.
Night after night he must re-swim For her.
Those waters ‘til she’d grant to him <—
That favour, (craved of her
On naked knees), No love,
As earned. However strong,
Successfully can thrive
— > On frequent, whimsical rebuffs.
One night, Sweethearts must risk their trust when proofs
Toiling across Can scarce be plumbed: for life
Through spate and moonless storm, Else is not long
His strength failed as his frustrate heart Enough.
Broke, like a groyne-pierced wave, apart. <—
He uttered a forlorn She saw
Cry as he lost Him as he drowned –
The fight, His face upturned to her –
Amid the foaming waves that beat
—> Below the window where she sat
Awaiting him. So near
She knew He was to ground,
His death was her So far!.
Responsibility.
She could have been more generous – <—
His proofs of love so onerous –
And poured felicity Absurd
On him who swore Fear failed his need,
Her true. (She should have known it would!),
—> Being more shallow than that strait
Whose turbid waters sealed his fate.
Alas!. She should have understood
Now she, for whom The dangers he’d
He’d bravely given all, Incurred!.
Hero – her love now lost at sea –
Felt such a surge of tragedy <—
She leaped from her high wall
To join her doom Now they
With his. Together swim
—> In legend’s Golden Horn,
Symbolic of love’s constancy.
He was her hero, her love; she
His chosen mate, re-sworn
His heroine
Alway.
