On a Leander Which Miss Reynolds, My Kind Friend, Gave Me
On a Leander Which Miss Reynolds, My Kind Friend, Gave Me - form Summary
A Brief Elegiac Sonnet
Keats frames a short, compact narrative as an explicit sonnet that condenses the myth of Leander’s drowning into a single intensified scene. The poem addresses modest maidens, then moves quickly into the tragic image of Leander sinking for Hero. The sonnet’s tight fourteen-line shape focuses emotion and visual detail, turning a classical love-death episode into an immediate, elegiac tableau that emphasizes finality and loss.
Read Complete AnalysesCome 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!
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