love, Leander | all the signals I never caught
My sweet — these nights in Abydos have been long and difficult.
Hero,
My sweet — these nights in Abydos have been long and difficult.
I sit and watch the censer burn on my table. In every speck of burning myrrh — I see a little part of my heart that goes up into smoke, ghostly white, sneaking out from my fingers and into the dark. O — how suffocating is this lonesome room — how impenetrable is this sky — how unfathomably alone are these lips — these eyes — this mind. The four walls of my room— what gods, what men, what souls dare tread this place in the dead of night? You have stolen my stars, Hero. I travel in the dark.
Sometimes I catch your eyes are in the dawnlight — gloaming dark, sparkling orbs. At the port, amid the rushing tide of men and women I spot your figure flashing past. Like the desert falcon — your shadow fluttering above my everyday — and you tuck your wings — I scamper— your shadow flits behind me as you dive down — I look up and you are gone. There is only the clamour of the waves, and the screeching of the seabirds to accompany me. I see you in the daffodils. I see you in the sultry desert haze — but how you torture me!
For I see — I see your light — Sestos gleams across the murkey water. You say the strait is dangerous — but I hope you can forgive me.
I have crossed the strait one hundred times, and will cross it one hundred times again.
There is a rainstorm tonight, and the air is deathly cold. I know how much the thunder disturbs you — there must be blankets below the pulpit where we last slept — take those, and take cares for yourself. Like albatrosses nested in their alcoves — heart pressed against heart — I will join you soon.
These words fly on the fastest horses — O, Godspeed! Godspeed! So they might come to your comfort —
love,
Leander
Hero, virgin priestess of Aphrodite at Sestos, was seen at a festival by Leander of Abydos; they fell in love, and he swam the Hellespont at night to visit her, guided by a light from her tower. One stormy night the light was extinguished, and Leander was drowned; Hero, seeing his body the next morning, drowned herself likewise.
