John Keats

Sonnet. On A Picture Of Leander

Come hither all sweet Maidens soberly Down looking aye, and with a chasten'd light Hid in the fringes of your eyelids white, And meekly let your fair hands joined be, As if so gentle that ye could not see, Untouch'd, a victim of your beauty bright, Sinking away to his young spirit's night, Sinking bewilder'd 'mid the dreary sea. 'Tis young Leander toiling to his death. Nigh swooning he doth purse his weary lips For Hero's cheek, and smiles against her smile. O horrid dream! see how his body dips Dead-heavy; arms and shoulders gleam awhile; He's gone; up bubbles all his amorous breath! 'This sonnet appeared in the year 1829 both in The Gem, A Literary Annal, edited by Thomas Hood, and in Galignani's edition of Shelley, Keats, and Coleridge. ' ~ Poetical Works of John Keats, ed. H. Buxton Forman, Crowell publ. 1895.