Classic Poem

L EANDER in the Dardanelles
Had rather race a dolphing
Than idle with the other swells
Or dance or go a-golfing.

In church at Abydos one day,
At a revival service,
He saw young Hero, and the way
He lamped her made her nervous.

And after that, along the coast
He would do fancy swimmin'
Graceful enough to charm the most
Fastidious of women;

When she'd go bathing, dawn or dark,
About her bathing station
He'd frolic like a friendly shark,
Or like a coy cetacean,

What maiden's heart could long resist
Such sweet and shy devotion?
Full often, when he dived, she kissed
And patted his pet ocean!

Leander, on flirtation bent,
Across the straits was floating
One morning when her mother went
To chaperon her boating: —

" Oh, mother, may I marry him? " —
" Oh, no, my darling daughter!
When young Leander goes to swim
Don't you go near the water! "

Alas! that maids should disobey,
Whom parents trust and bless so!
Girls will be girls ... in Hero's day
They were not any less so.

Next time she heard him in the sea
Snort like a loving grampus,
Says she, " Swim over after tea —
It's dark and none can lamp us! "

And after that, to light her love,
She used to show a candle ...
It grew to the dimensions of
A reg'lar seashore scandal ...

But finally Neptune, Triton, or
Some ordinary porpoise,
Caught him a mile or two from shore
And served a habeas corpus .

The night was cold ... the sea was damp ...
Alas, for him and Hero!
The moral is: Don't risk a cramp
When the water's down to zero.