From the First Sestiad of “Hero and Leander”
ON Hellespont, guilty of true love’s blood,
In view and opposite two cities stood,
Sea-borderers, disjoined by Neptune’s might;
The one Abydos, the other Sestos hight.
At Sestos Hero dwelt; Hero the fair,
Whom young Apollo courted for her hair,
And offered as a dower his burning throne,
...
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Beauty crowds me till I die
Beauty mercy have on me
But if I expire today
Let it be in sight of thee — -
Beauty — be not caused — It Is —
Chase it, and it ceases —
Chase it not, and it abides —
Overtake the Creases
In the Meadow — when the Wind
Runs his fingers thro' it —
Deity will see to it
That You never do it — -
Estranged from Beauty — none can be —
For Beauty is Infinity —
And power to be finite ceased
Before Identity was leased. -
I died for beauty, but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.
He questioned softly why I failed ?
"For beauty," I replied.
"And I for truth, — the two are one ;...I am as lovely as a dream in stone,
And this my heart where each finds death in turn,
Inspires the poet with a love as lone
As clay eternal and as taciturn.
Swan-white of heart, a sphinx no mortal knows,
My throne is in the heaven's azure deep;
I hate...To tell the Beauty would decrease
To state the Spell demean —
There is a syllable-less Sea
Of which it is the sign —
My will endeavors for its word
And fails, but entertains
A Rapture as of Legacies —
Of introspective Mines —