Endymion / Keats, John

                                      1816
                           ENDYMION: A POETIC ROMANCE
                                 by John Keats
PREFACE

          "The stretched metre of an antique song"

        INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS CHATTERTON

                        PREFACE

  KNOWING within myself the manner in which this Poem has been
produced, it is not without a feeling of regret that I make it public.
  What manner I mean, will be quite clear to the reader, who must soon
perceive great inexperience, immaturity, and every error denoting a
feverish attempt, rather than a deed accomplished. The two first
books, and indeed the two last, I feel sensible are not of such
completion as to warrant their passing the press; nor should they if I
thought a year's castigation would do them any good;- it will not: the
foundations are too sandy. It is just that this youngster should die
away: a sad thought for me, if I had not some hope that while it is
dwindling I may be plotting, and fitting myself for verses fit to
live.
  This may be speaking too presumptuously, and may deserve a
punishment: but no feeling man will be forward to inflict it: he will
leave me alone, with the conviction that there is not fiercer hell
than the failure in a great object. This is not written with the
least atom of purpose to forestall criticisms of course, but from the
desire I have to conciliate men who are competent to look, and who do
look witha zealous eye, to the honour of English literature.
  The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a
man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the
soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life
uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted: thence proceeds mawkishness,
and all the thousand bitters which those men I speak of must
necessarily taste in going over the following pages.
  I hope I have not in too late a day touched the beautiful
mythology of Greece and dulled its brightness: for I wish to try
once more, before I bid it farewell.

  TEIGNMOUTH,
  April 10, 1818
                        BOOK I.

        A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
        Its loveliness increases; it will never
        Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
        A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
        Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
        Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
        A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
        Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
        Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
        Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
        Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
        Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
        From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
        Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon
        For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
        With the green world they live in; and clear rills
        That for themselves a cooling covert make
        'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
        Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
        And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
        We have imagined for the mighty dead;
        All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
        An endless fountain of immortal drink,
        Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

          Nor do we merely feel these essences
        For one short hour; no, even as the trees
        That whisper round a temple become soon
        Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
        The passion poesy, glories infinite,
        Haunt us till they become a cheering light
        Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast,
        That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast,
        They alway must be with us, or we die.

          Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
        Will trace the story of Endymion.
        The very music of the name has gone
        Into my being, and each pleasant scene
        Is growing fresh before me as the green
        Of our own vallies: so I will begin
        Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
        Now while the early budders are just new,
        And run in mazes of the youngest hue
        About old forests; while the willow trails
        Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
        Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
        Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
        My little boat, for many quiet hours,
        With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
        Many and many a verse I hope to write,
        Before the daisies, vermeil rimm'd and white,
        Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
        Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
        I must be near the middle of my story.
        O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
        See it half finish'd: but let Autumn bold,
        With universal tinge of sober gold,
        Be all about me when I make an end.
        And now at once, adventuresome, I send
        My herald thought into a wilderness:
        There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
        My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
        Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.

          Upon the sides of Latmos was outspread
        A mighty forest; for the moist earth fed
        So plenteously all weed-hidden roots
        Into o'er-hanging boughs, and precious fruits.
        And it had gloomy shades, sequestered deep,
        Where no man went; and if from shepherd's keep
        A lamb stray'd far a-down those inmost glens,
        Never again saw he the happy pens
        Whither his brethren, bleating with content,
        Over the hills at every nightfall went.
        Among the shepherds, 'twas believed ever,
        That not one fleecy lamb which thus did sever
        From the white flock, but pass'd unworried
        By angry wolf, or pard with prying head,
        Until it came to some unfooted plains
        Where fed the herds of Pan: aye great his gains
        Who thus one lamb did lose. Paths there were many,
        Winding through palmy fern, and rushes fenny,
        And ivy banks; all leading pleasantly
        To a wide lawn, whence one could only see
        Stems thronging all around between the swell
        Of turf and slanting branches: who could tell
        The freshness of the space of heaven above,
        Edg'd round with dark tree tops? through which a dove
        Would often beat its wings, and often too
        A little cloud would move across the blue.

          Full in the middle of this pleasantness
        There stood a marble altar, with a tress
        Of flowers budded newly; and the dew
        Had taken fairy phantasies to strew
        Daisies upon the sacred sward last eve,
        And so the dawned light in pomp receive.
        For 'twas the morn: Apollo's upward fire
        Made every eastern cloud a silvery pyre
        Of brightness so unsullied, that therein
        A melancholy spirit well might win
        Oblivion, and melt out his essence fine
        Into the winds: rain-scented eglantine
        Gave temperate sweets to that well-wooing sun;
        The lark was lost in him; cold springs had run
        To warm their chilliest bubbles in the grass;
        Man's voice was on the mountains; and the mass
        Of nature's lives and wonders puls'd tenfold,
        To feel this sun-rise and its glories old.

          Now while the silent workings of the dawn
        Were busiest, into that self-same lawn
        All suddenly, with joyful cries, there sped
        A troop of little children garlanded;
        Who gathering round the altar, seem'd to pry
        Earnestly round as wishing to espy
        Some folk of holiday: nor had they waited
        For many moments, ere their ears were sated
        With a faint breath of music, which ev'n then
        Fill'd out its voice, and died away again.
        Within a little space again it gave
        Its airy swellings, with a gentle wave,
        To light-hung leaves, in smoothest echoes breaking
        Through copse-clad vallies,- ere their death, o'ertaking
        The surgy murmurs of the lonely sea.

          And now, as deep into the wood as we
        Might mark a lynx's eye, there glimmered light
        Fair faces and a rush of garments white,
        Plainer and plainer showing, till at last
        Into the widest alley they all past,
        Making directly for the woodland altar.
        O kindly muse! let not my weak tongue faulter
        In telling of this goodly company,
        Of their old piety, and of their glee:
        But let a portion of ethereal dew
        Fall on my head, and presently unmew
        My soul; that I may dare, in wayfaring,
        To stammer where old Chaucer us'd to sing.

          Leading the way, young damsels danced along,
        Bearing the burden of a shepherd song;
        Each having a white wicker over brimm'd
        With April's tender younglings: next, well trimm'd,
        A crowd of shepherds with as sunburnt looks
        As may be read of in Arcadian books;
        Such as sat listening round Apollo's pipe,
        When the great deity, for earth too ripe,
        Let his divinity o'erflowing die
        In music, through the vales of Thessaly:
        Some idly trail'd their sheep-hooks on the ground,
        And some kept up a shrilly mellow sound
        With ebon-tipped flutes: close after these,
        Now coming from beneath the forest trees,
        A venerable priest full soberly,
        Begirt with ministring looks: alway his eye
        Stedfast upon the matted turf he kept,
        And after him his sacred vestments swept.
        From his right hand there swung a vase, milk-white,
        Of mingled wine, out-sparkling generous light;
        And in his left he held a basket full
        Of all sweet herbs that searching eye could cull:
        Wild thyme, and valley-lillies whiter still
        Than Leda's love, and cresses from the rill.
        His aged head, crowned with beechen wreath,
        Seem'd like a poll of ivy in the teeth
        Of winter hoar. Then came another crowd
        Of shepherds, lifting in due time aloud
        Their share of the ditty. After them appear'd,
        Up-followed by a multitude that rear'd
        Their voices to the clouds, a fair wrought car,
        Easily rolling so as scarce to mar
        The freedom of three steeds of dapple brown:
        Who stood therein did seem of great renown
        Among the throng. His youth was fully blown,
        Showing like Ganymede to manhood grown;
        And, for those simple times, his garments were
        A chieftain king's: beneath his breast, half bare,
        Was hung a silver bugle, and between
        His nervy knees there lay a boar-spear keen.
        A smile was on his countenance; he seem'd,
        To common lookers on, like one who dream'd
        Of idleness in groves Elysian:
        But there were some who feelingly could scan
        A lurking trouble in his nether lip,
        And see that oftentimes the reins would slip
        Through his forgotten hands: then would they sigh,
        And think of yellow leaves, of owlets' cry,
        Of logs piled solemnly.- Ah, well-a-day,
        Why should our young Endymion pine away!

          Soon the assembly, in a circle rang'd,
        Stood silent round the shrine: each look was chang'd
        To sudden veneration: women meek
        Beckon'd their sons to silence; while each cheek
        Of virgin bloom paled gently for slight fear.
        Endymion too, without a forest peer,
        Stood, wan, and pale, and with an awed face,
        Among his brothers of the mountain chace.
        In midst of all, the venerable priest
        Eyed them with joy from greatest to the least,
        And, after lifting up his aged hands,
        Thus spake he: "Men of Latmos! shepherd bands!
        Whose care it is to guard a thousand flocks:
        Whether descended from beneath the rocks
        That overtop your mountains; whether come
        From vallies where the pipe is never dumb;
        Or from your swelling downs, where sweet air stirs
        Blue hare-bells lightly, and where prickly furze
        Buds lavish gold; or ye, whose precious charge
        Nibble their fill at ocean's very marge,
        Whose mellow reeds are touch'd with sounds forlorn
        By the dim echoes of old Triton's horn:
        Mothers and wives! who day by day prepare
        The scrip, with needments, for the mountain air;
        And all ye gentle girls who foster up
        Udderless lambs, and in a little cup
        Will put choice honey for a favoured youth:
        Yea, every one attend! for in good truth
        Our vows are wanting to our great god Pan.
        Are not our lowing heifers sleeker than
        Night-swollen mushrooms? Are not our wide plains
        Speckled with countless fleeces? Have not rains
        Green'd over April's lap? No howling sad
        Sickens our fearful ewes; and we have had
        Great bounty from Endymion our lord.
        The earth is glad: the merry lark has pour'd
        His early song against yon breezy sky,
        That spreads so clear o'er our solemnity."

          Thus ending, on the shrine he heap'd a spire
        Of teeming sweets, enkindling sacred fire;
        Anon he stain'd the thick and spongy sod
        With wine, in honour of the shepherd-god.
        Now while the earth was drinking it, and while
        Bay leaves were crackling in the fragrant pile,
        And gummy frankincense was sparkling bright
        'Neath smothering parsley, and a hazy light
        Spread greyly eastward, thus a chorus sang:

          "O thou, whose mighty palace roof doth hang
        From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth
        Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death
        Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness;
        Who lov'st to see the hamadryads dress
        Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels darken;
        And through whole solemn hours dost sit, and hearken
        The dreary melody of bedded reeds-
        In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds
        The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth;
        Bethinking thee, how melancholy loth
        Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx- do thou now,
        By thy love's milky brow!
        By all the trembling mazes that she ran,
        Hear us, great Pan!

          "O thou, for whose soul-soothing quiet, turtles
        Passion their voices cooingly 'mong myrtles,
        What time thou wanderest at eventide
        Through sunny meadows, that outskirt the side
        Of thine enmossed realms: O thou, to whom
        Broad leaved fig trees even now foredoom
        Their ripen'd fruitage; yellow girted bees
        Their golden honeycombs; our village leas
        Their fairest blossom'd beans and poppied corn;
        The chuckling linnet its five young unborn,
        To sing for thee; low creeping strawberries
        Their summer coolness; pent up butterflies
        Their freckled wings; yea, the fresh budding year
        All its completions- be quickly near,
        By every wind that nods the mountain pine,
        O forester divine!

          "Thou, to whom every faun and satyr flies
        For willing service; whether to surprise
        The squatted hare while in half sleeping fit;
        Or upward ragged precipices flit
        To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw;
        Or by mysterious enticement draw
        Bewildered shepherds to their path again;
        Or to tread breathless round the frothy main,
        And gather up all fancifullest shells
        For thee to tumble into Naiads' cells,
        And, being hidden, laugh at their out-peeping;
        Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping,
        The while they pelt each other on the crown
        With silvery oak apples, and fir cones brown-
        By all the echoes that about thee ring,
        Hear us, O satyr king!

          "O Hearkener to the loud clapping shears
        While ever and anon to his shorn peers
        A ram goes bleating: Winder of the horn,
        When snouted wild-boars routing tender corn
        Anger our huntsmen: Breather round our farms,
        To keep off mildews, and all weather harms:
        Strange ministrant of undescribed sounds,
        That come a swooning over hollow grounds,
        And wither drearily on barren moors:
        Dread opener of the mysterious doors
        Leading to universal knowledge- see,
        Great son of Dryope,
        The many that are come to pay their vows
        With leaves about their brows!

          "Be still the unimaginable lodge
        For solitary thinkings; such as dodge
        Conception to the very bourne of heaven,
        Then leave the naked brain: be still the leaven,
        That spreading in this dull and clodded earth
        Gives it a touch ethereal- a new birth:
        Be still a symbol of immensity;
        A firmament reflected in a sea;
        An element filling the space between;
        An unknown- but no more: we humbly screen
        With uplift hands our foreheads, lowly bending,
        And giving out a shout most heaven rending,
        Conjure thee to receive our humble Paean,
        Upon thy Mount Lycean!"

          Even while they brought the burden to a close,
        A shout from the whole multitude arose,
        That lingered in the air like dying rolls
        Of abrupt thunder, when Ionian shoals
        Of dolphins bob their noses through the brine.
        Meantime, on shady levels, mossy fine,
        Young companies nimbly began dancing
        To the swift treble pipe, and humming string.
        Aye, those fair living forms swam heavenly
        To tunes forgotten- out of memory:
        Fair creatures! whose young children's children bred
        Thermopylae its heroes- not yet dead,
        But in old marbles ever beautiful.
        High genitors, unconscious did they cull
        Time's sweet first-fruits- they danc'd to weariness,
        And then in quiet circles did they press
        The hillock turf, and caught the latter end
        Of some strange history, potent to send
        A young mind from its bodily tenement.
        Or they might watch the quoit-pitchers, intent
        On either side; pitying the sad death
        Of Hyacinthus, when the cruel breath
        Of Zephyr slew him,- Zephyr penitent,
        Who now, ere Phoebus mounts the firmament,
        Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain.
        The archers too, upon a wider plain,
        Beside the feathery whizzing of the shaft,
        And the dull twanging bowstring, and the raft
        Branch down sweeping from a tall ash top,
        Call'd up a thousand thoughts to envelope
        Those who would watch. Perhaps, the trembling knee
        And frantic gape of lonely Niobe,
        Poor, lonely Niobe! when her lovely young
        Were dead and gone, and her caressing tongue
        Lay a lost thing upon her paly lip,
        And very, very deadliness did nip
        Her motherly cheeks. Arous'd from this sad mood
        By one, who at a distance loud halloo'd,
        Uplifting his strong bow into the air,
        Many might after brighter visions stare:
        After the Argonauts, in blind amaze
        Tossing about on Neptune's restless ways,
        Until, from the horizon's vaulted side,
        There shot a golden splendour far and wide,
        Spangling those million poutings of the brine
        With quivering ore: 'twas even an awful shine
        From the exaltation of Apollo's bow;
        A heavenly beacon in their dreary woe.
        Who thus were ripe for high contemplating,
        Might turn their steps towards the sober ring
        Where sat Endymion and the aged priest
        'Mong shepherds gone in eld, whose looks increas'd
        The silvery setting of their mortal star.
        There they discours'd upon the fragile bar
        That keeps us from our homes ethereal;
        And what our duties there: to nightly call
        Vesper, the beauty-crest of summer weather;
        To summon all the downiest clouds together
        For the sun's purple couch; to emulate
        In ministring the potent rule of fate
        With speed of fire-tail'd exhalations;
        To tint her pallid cheek with bloom, who cons
        Sweet poesy by moonlight: besides these,
        A world of other unguess'd offices.
        Anon they wander'd, by divine converse,
        Into Elysium; vieing to rehearse
        Each one his own anticipated bliss.
        One felt heart-certain that he could not miss
        His quick gone love, among fair blossom'd boughs,
        Where every zephyr-sigh pouts, and endows
        Her lips with music for the welcoming.
        Another wish'd, mid that eternal spring,
        To meet his rosy child, with feathery sails,
        Sweeping, eye-earnestly, through almond vales:
        Who, suddenly, should stoop through the smooth wind,
        And with the balmiest leaves his temples bind;
        And, ever after, through those regions be
        His messenger, his little Mercury.
        Some were athirst in soul to see again
        Their fellow huntsmen o'er the wide champaign
        In times long past; to sit with them, and talk
        Of all the chances in their earthly walk;
        Comparing, joyfully, their plenteous stores
        Of happiness, to when upon the moors,
        Benighted, close they huddled from the cold,
        And shar'd their famish'd scrips. Thus all out-told
        Their fond imaginations,- saving him
        Whose eyelids curtain'd up their jewels dim,
        Endymion: yet hourly had he striven
        To hide the cankering venom, that had riven
        His fainting recollections. Now indeed
        His senses had swoon'd off: he did not heed
        The sudden silence, or the whispers low,
        Or the old eyes dissolving at his woe,
        Or anxious calls, or close of trembling palms,
        Or maiden's sigh, that grief itself embalms:
        But in the self-same fixed trance he kept,
        Like one who on the earth had never stept.
        Aye, even as dead still as a marble man,
        Frozen in that old tale Arabian.

          Who whispers him so pantingly and close?
        Peona, his sweet sister: of all those,
        His friends, the dearest. Hushing signs she made,
        And breath'd a sister's sorrow to persuade
        A yielding up, a cradling on her care.
        Her eloquence did breathe away the curse:
        She led him, like some midnight spirit nurse
        Of happy changes in emphatic dreams,
        Along a path between two little streams,-
        Guarding his forehead, with her round elbow,
        From low-grown branches, and his footsteps slow
        From stumbling over stumps and hillocks small;
        Until they came to where these streamlets fall,
        With mingled bubblings and a gentle rush,
        Into a river, clear, brimful, and flush
        With crystal mocking of the trees and sky.
        A little shallop, floating there hard by,
        Pointed its beak over the fringed bank;
        And soon it lightly dipt, and rose, and sank,
        And dipt again, with the young couple's weight,-
        Peona guiding, through the water straight,
        Towards a bowery island opposite;
        Which gaining presently, she steered light
        Into a shady, fresh, and ripply cove,
        Where nested was an arbour, overwove
        By many a summer's silent fingering;
        To whose cool bosom she was used to bring
        Her playmates, with their needle broidery,
        And minstrel memories of times gone by.

          So she was gently glad to see him laid
        Under her favourite bower's quiet shade,
        On her own couch, new made of flower leaves,
        Dried carefully on the cooler side of sheaves
        When last the sun his autumn tresses shook,
        And the tann'd harvesters rich armfuls took.
        Soon was he quieted to slumbrous rest:
        But, ere it crept upon him, he had prest
        Peona's busy hand against his lips,
        And still, a sleeping, held her finger-tips
        In tender pressure. And as a willow keeps
        A patient watch over the stream that creeps
        Windingly by it, so the quiet maid
        Held her in peace: so that a whispering blade
        Of grass, a wailful gnat, a bee bustling
        Down in the blue-bells, or a wren light rustling
        Among sere leaves and twigs, might all be heard.

          O magic sleep! O comfortable bird,
        That broodest o'er the troubled sea of the mind
        Till it is hush'd and smooth! O unconfin'd
        Restraint! imprisoned liberty! great key
        To golden palaces, strange minstrelsy,
        Fountains grotesque, new trees, bespangled caves,
        Echoing grottos, full of tumbling waves
        And moonlight; aye, to all the mazy world
        Of silvery enchantment!- who, upfurl'd
        Beneath thy drowsy wing a triple hour,
        But renovates and lives?- Thus, in the bower,
        Endymion was calm'd to life again.
        Opening his eyelids with a healthier brain,
        He said: "I feel this thine endearing love
        All through my bosom: thou art as a dove
        Trembling its closed eyes and sleeked wings
        About me; and the pearliest dew not brings
        Such morning incense from the fields of May,
        As do those brighter drops that twinkling stray
        From those kind eyes,- the very home and haunt
        Of sisterly affection. Can I want
        Aught else, aught nearer heaven, than such tears?
        Yet dry them up, in bidding hence all fears
        That, any longer, I will pass my days
        Alone and sad. No, I will once more raise
        My voice upon the mountain-heights; once more
        Make my horn parley from their foreheads hoar:
        Again my trooping hounds their tongues shall loll
        Around the breathed boar: again I'll poll
        The fair-grown yew tree, for a chosen bow:
        And, when the pleasant sun is setting low,
        Again I'll linger in a sloping mead
        To hear the speckled thrushes, and see feed
        Our idle sheep. So be thou cheered, sweet,
        And, if thy lute is here, softly intreat
        My soul to keep in its resolved course."

          Hereat Peona, in their silver source,
        Shut her pure sorrow drops with glad exclaim,
        And took a lute, from which there pulsing came
        A lively prelude, fashioning the way
        In which her voice should wander. 'Twas a lay
        More subtle cadenced, more forest wild
        Than Dryope's lone lulling of her child;
        And nothing since has floated in the air
        So mournful strange. Surely some influence rare
        Went, spiritual, through the damsel's hand;
        For still, with Delphic emphasis, she spann'd
        The quick invisible strings, even though she saw
        Endymion's spirit melt away and thaw
        Before the deep intoxication.
        But soon she came, with sudden burst, upon
        Her self-possession- swung the lute aside,
        And earnestly said: "Brother, 'tis vain to hide
        That thou dost know of things mysterious,
        Immortal, starry; such alone could thus
        Weigh down thy nature. Hast thou sinn'd in aught
        Offensive to the heavenly power? Caught
        A Paphian dove upon a message sent?
        Thy deathful bow against some deer-herd bent
        Sacred to Dian? Haply, thou hast seen
        Her naked limbs among the alders green;
        And that, alas! is death. No, I can trace
        Something more high perplexing in thy face!"

          Endymion look'd at her, and press'd her hand,
        And said, "Art thou so pale, who wast so bland
        And merry in our meadows? How is this?
        Tell me thine ailment: tell me all amiss!-
        Ah! thou hast been unhappy at the change
        Wrought suddenly in me. What indeed more strange?
        Or more complete to overwhelm surmise?
        Ambition is so sluggard; 'tis no prize,
        That toiling years would put within my grasp,
        That I have sighed for: with so deadly gasp
        No man e'er panted for a mortal love.
        So all have set my heavier grief above
        These things which happen. Rightly have they done:
        I, who still saw the horizontal sun
        Heave his broad shoulder o'er the edge of the world,
        Out-facing Lucifer, and then had hurl'd
        My spear aloft, as signal for the chace-
        I, who, for very sport of heart, would race
        With my own steed from Araby; pluck down
        A vulture from his towery perching; frown
        A lion into growling, loth retire-
        To lose, at once, all my toil-breeding fire,
        And sink thus low! but I will ease my breast
        Of secret grief, here in this bowery nest.

          "This river does not see the naked sky,
        Till it begins to progress silverly
        Around the western border of the wood,
        Whence, from a certain spot, its winding flood
        Seems at the distance like a crescent moon:
        And in that nook, the very pride of June,
        Had I been used to pass my weary eves;
        The rather for the sun unwilling leaves
        So dear a picture of his sovereign power,
        And I could witness his most kingly hour,
        When he doth tighten up the golden reins,
        And paces leisurely down amber plains
        His snorting four. Now when his chariot last
        Its beams against the zodiac-lion cast,
        There blossom'd suddenly a magic bed
        Of sacred ditamy, and poppies red:
        At which I wondered greatly, knowing well
        That but one night had wrought this flowery spell;
        And, sitting down close by, began to muse
        What it might mean. Perhaps, thought I, Morpheus,
        In passing here, his owlet pinions shook;
        Or, it may be, ere matron Night uptook
        Her ebon urn, young Mercury, by stealth,
        Had dipt his rod in it: such garland wealth
        Came not by common growth. Thus on I thought,
        Until my head was dizzy and distraught.
        Moreover, through the dancing poppies stole
        A breeze, most softly lulling to my soul;
        And shaping visions all about my sight
        Of colours, wings, and bursts of spangly light;
        The which became more strange, and strange, and dim,
        And then were gulph'd in a tumultuous swim:
        And then I fell asleep. Ah, can I tell
        The enchantment that afterwards befel?
        Yet it was but a dream: yet such a dream
        That never tongue, although it overteem
        With mellow utterance, like a cavern spring,
        Could figure out and to conception bring
        All I beheld and felt. Methought I lay
        Watching the zenith, where the milky way
        Among the stars in virgin splendour pours;
        And travelling my eye, until the doors
        Of heaven appear'd to open for my flight,
        I became loth and fearful to alight
        From such high soaring by a downward glance:
        So kept me stedfast in that airy trance,
        Spreading imaginary pinions wide.
        When, presently, the stars began to glide,
        And faint away, before my eager view:
        At which I sigh'd that I could not pursue,
        And dropt my vision to the horizon's verge;
        And lo! from opening clouds, I saw emerge
        The loveliest moon, that ever silver'd o'er
        A shell for Neptune's goblet: she did soar
        So passionately bright, my dazzled soul
        Commingling with her argent spheres did roll
        Through clear and cloudy, even when she went
        At last into a dark and vapoury tent-
        Whereat, methought, the lidless-eyed train
        Of planets all were in the blue again.
        To commune with those orbs, once more I rais'd
        My sight right upward: but it was quite dazed
        By a bright something, sailing down apace,
        Making me quickly veil my eyes and face:
        Again I look'd, and, O ye deities,
        Who from Olympus watch our destinies!
        Whence that completed form of all completeness?
        Whence came that high perfection of all sweetness?
        Speak, stubborn earth, and tell me where, O where
        Hast thou a symbol of her golden hair?
        Not oat-sheaves drooping in the western sun;
        Not- thy soft hand, fair sister! let me shun
        Such follying before thee- yet she had,
        Indeed, locks bright enough to make me mad;
        And they were simply gordian'd up and braided,
        Leaving, in naked comeliness, unshaded,
        Her pearl round ears, white neck, and orbed brow;
        The which were blended in, I know not how,
        With such a paradise of lips and eyes,
        Blush-tinted cheeks, half smiles, and faintest sighs,
        That, when I think thereon, my spirit clings
        And plays about its fancy, till the stings
        Of human neighbourhood envenom all.
        Unto what awful power shall I call?
        To what high fane?- Ah! see her hovering feet,
        More bluely vein'd, more soft, more whitely sweet
        Than those of sea-born Venus, when she rose
        From out her cradle shell. The wind out-blows
        Her scarf into a fluttering pavillion;
        'Tis blue, and over-spangled with a million
        Of little eyes, as though thou wert to shed,
        Over the darkest, lushest blue-bell bed,
        Handfuls of daisies."- "Endymion, how strange!
        Dream within dream!"- "She took an airy range,
        And then, towards me, like a very maid,
        Came blushing, waning, willing, and afraid,
        And press'd me by the hand: Ah! 'twas too much;
        Methought I fainted at the charmed touch,
        Yet held my recollections, even as one
        Who dives three fathoms where the waters run
        Gurgling in beds of coral: for anon,
        I felt upmounted in that region
        Where falling stars dart their artillery forth,
        And eagles struggle with the buffeting north
        That balances the heavy meteor-stone;-
        Felt too, I was not fearful, nor alone,
        But lapp'd and lull'd along the dangerous sky.
        Soon, as it seem'd, we left our journeying high,
        And straightway into frightful eddies swoop'd;
        Such as aye muster where grey time has scoop'd
        Huge dens and caverns in a mountain's side;
        There hollow sounds arous'd me, and I sigh'd
        To faint once more by looking on my bliss-
        I was distracted; madly did I kiss
        The wooing arms which held me, and did give
        My eyes at once to death: but 'twas to live,
        To take in draughts of life from the gold fount
        Of kind and passionate looks; to count, and count
        The moments, by some greedy help that seem'd
        A second self, that each might be redeem'd
        And plunder'd of its load of blessedness.
        Ah, desperate mortal! I e'en dar'd to press
        Her very cheek against my crowned lip,
        And, at that moment, felt my body dip
        Into a warmer air: a moment more,
        Our feet were soft in flowers. There was store
        Of newest joys upon that alp. Sometimes
        A scent of violets, and blossoming limes,
        Loiter'd around us; then of honey cells,
        Made delicate from all white-flower bells;
        And once, above the edges of our nest,
        An arch face peep'd,- an Oread as I guess'd.

          "Why did I dream that sleep o'er-power'd me
        In midst of all this heaven? Why not see,
        Far off, the shadows of his pinions dark,
        And stare them from me? But no, like a spark
        That needs must die, although its little beam
        Reflects upon a diamond, my sweet dream
        Fell into nothing- into stupid sleep.
        And so it was, until a gentle creep,
        A careful moving caught my waking ears,
        And up I started: Ah! my sighs, my tears,
        My clenched hands:- for lo! the poppies hung
        Dew-dabbled on their stalks, the ouzel sung
        A heavy ditty, and the sullen day
        Had chidden herald Hesperus away,
        With leaden looks: the solitary breeze
        Bluster'd, and slept, and its wild self did teaze
        With wayward melancholy; and I thought,
        Mark me, Peona! that sometimes it brought
        Faint fare-thee-wells, and sigh-shrilled adieus!-
        Away I wander'd- all the pleasant hues
        Of heaven and earth had faded: deepest shades
        Were deepest dungeons; heaths and sunny glades
        Were full of pestilent light; our taintless rills
        Seem'd sooty, and o'er-spread with upturn'd gills
        Of dying fish; the vermeil rose had blown
        In frightful scarlet, and its thorns out-grown
        Like spiked aloe. If an innocent bird
        Before my heedless footsteps stirr'd, and stirr'd
        In little journeys, I beheld in it
        A disguis'd demon, missioned to knit
        My soul with under darkness; to entice
        My stumblings down some monstrous precipice:
        Therefore I eager followed, and did curse
        The disappointment. Time, that aged nurse,
        Rock'd me to patience. Now, thank gentle heaven!
        These things, with all their comfortings, are given
        To my down-sunken hours, and with thee,
        Sweet sister, help to stem the ebbing sea
        Of weary life."

                            Thus ended he, and both
        Sat silent: for the maid was very loth
        To answer; feeling well that breathed words
        Would all be lost, unheard, and vain as swords
        Against the enchased crocodile, or leaps
        Of grasshoppers against the sun. She weeps
        And wonders; struggles to devise some blame;
        To put on such a look as would say, Shame
        On this poor weakness! but, for all her strife,
        She could as soon have crush'd away the life
        From a sick dove. At length, to break the pause,
        She said with trembling chance: "Is this the cause?
        This all? Yet it is strange, and sad, alas!
        That one who through this middle earth should pass
        Most like a sojourning demi-god, and leave
        His name upon the harp-string, should achieve
        No higher bard than simple maidenhood,
        Singing alone, and fearfully,- how the blood
        Left his young cheek; and how he used to stray
        He knew not where; and how he would say, nay,
        If any said 'twas love: and yet 'twas love;
        What could it be but love? How a ring-dove
        Let fall a sprig of yew tree in his path;
        And how he died: and then, that love doth scathe
        The gentle heart, as northern blasts do roses;
        And then the ballad of his sad life closes
        With sighs, and an alas!- Endymion!
        Be rather in the trumpet's mouth,- anon
        Among the winds at large- that all may hearken!
        Although, before the crystal heavens darken,
        I watch and dote upon the silver lakes
        Pictur'd in western cloudiness, that takes
        The semblance of gold rocks and bright gold sands,
        Islands, and creeks, and amber-fretted strands
        With horses prancing o'er them, palaces
        And towers of amethyst,- would I so teaze
        My pleasant days, because I could not mount
        Into those regions? The Morphean fount
        Of that fine element that visions, dreams,
        And fitful whims of sleep are made of, streams
        Into its airy channels with so subtle,
        So thin a breathing, not the spider's shuttle,
        Circled a million times within the space
        Of a swallow's nest-door, could delay a trace,
        A tinting of its quality: how light
        Must dreams themselves be; seeing they're more slight
        Than the mere nothing that engenders them!
        Then wherefore sully the entrusted gem
        Of high and noble life with thoughts so sick?
        Why pierce high-fronted honour to the quick
        For nothing but a dream?" Hereat the youth
        Look'd up: a conflicting of shame and ruth
        Was in his plaited brow: yet, his eyelids
        Widened a little, as when Zephyr bids
        A little breeze to creep between the fans
        Of careless butterflies: amid his pains
        He seem'd to taste a drop of manna-dew,
        Full palatable; and a colour grew
        Upon his cheek, while thus he lifeful spake.

          "Peona! ever have I long'd to slake
        My thirst for the world's praises: nothing base,
        No merely slumberous phantasm, could unlace
        The stubborn canvas for my voyage prepar'd-
        Though now 'tis tatter'd; leaving my bark bar'd
        And sullenly drifting: yet my higher hope
        Is of too wide, too rainbow-large a scope,
        To fret at myriads of earthly wrecks.
        Wherein lies happiness? In that which becks
        Our ready minds to fellowship divine,
        A fellowship with essence; till we shine,
        Full alchemiz'd, and free of space. Behold
        The clear religion of heaven! Fold
        A rose leaf round thy finger's taperness,
        And soothe thy lips: hist, when the airy stress
        Of music's kiss impregnates the free winds,
        And with a sympathetic touch unbinds
        AEolian magic from their lucid wombs:
        Then old songs waken from enclouded tombs;
        Old ditties sigh above their father's grave;
        Ghosts of melodious prophecyings rave
        Round every spot where trod Apollo's foot;
        Bronze clarions awake, and faintly bruit,
        Where long ago a giant battle was;
        And, from the turf, a lullaby doth pass
        In every place where infant Orpheus slept.
        Feel we these things?- that moment have we stept
        Into a sort of oneness, and our state
        Is like a floating spirit's. But there are
        Richer entanglements, enthralments far
        More self-destroying, leading, by degrees,
        To the chief intensity: the crown of these
        Is made of love and friendship, and sits high
        Upon the forehead of humanity.
        All its more ponderous and bulky worth
        Is friendship, whence there ever issues forth
        A steady splendour; but at the tip-top,
        There hangs by unseen film, an orbed drop
        Of light, and that is love: its influence,
        Thrown in our eyes, genders a novel sense,
        At which we start and fret; till in the end,
        Melting into its radiance, we blend,
        Mingle, and so become a part of it,-
        Nor with aught else can our souls interknit
        So wingedly: when we combine therewith,
        Life's self is nourish'd by its proper pith,
        And we are nurtured like a pelican brood.
        Aye, so delicious is the unsating food,
        That men, who might have tower'd in the van
        Of all the congregated world, to fan
        And winnow from the coming step of time
        All chaff of custom, wipe away all slime
        Left by men-slugs and human serpentry,
        Have been content to let occasion die,
        Whilst they did sleep in love's elysium.
        And, truly, I would rather be struck dumb,
        Than speak against this ardent listlessness:
        For I have ever thought that it might bless
        The world with benefits unknowingly;
        As does the nightingale, upperched high,
        And cloister'd among cool and bunched leaves-
        She sings but to her love, nor e'er conceives
        How tiptoe Night holds back her dark-grey hood.
        Just so may love, although 'tis understood
        The mere commingling of passionate breath,
        Produce more than our searching witnesseth:
        What I know not: but who, of men, can tell
        That flowers would bloom, or that green fruit would swell
        To melting pulp, that fish would have bright mail,
        The earth its dower of river, wood, and vale,
        The meadows runnels, runnels pebble-stones,
        The seed its harvest, or the lute its tones,
        Tones ravishment, or ravishment its sweet,
        If human souls did never kiss and greet?

          "Now, if this earthly love has power to make
        Men's being mortal, immortal; to shake
        Ambition from their memories, and brim
        Their measure of content: what merest whim,
        Seems all this poor endeavour after fame,
        To one, who keeps within his stedfast aim
        A love immortal, an immortal too.
        Look not so wilder'd; for these things are true,
        And never can be born of atomies
        That buzz about our slumbers, like brain-flies,
        Leaving us fancy-sick. No, no, I'm sure,
        My restless spirit never could endure
        To brood so long upon one luxury,
        Unless it did, though fearfully, espy
        A hope beyond the shadow of a dream.
        My sayings will the less obscured seem,
        When I have told thee how my waking sight
        Has made me scruple whether that same night
        Was pass'd in dreaming. Hearken, sweet Peona!
        Beyond the matron-temple of Latona,
        Which we should see but for these darkening boughs,
        Lies a deep hollow, from whose ragged brows
        Bushes and trees do lean all round athwart
        And meet so nearly, that with wings outraught,
        And spreaded tail, a vulture could not glide
        Past them, but he must brush on every side.
        Some moulder'd steps lead into this cool cell,
        Far as the slabbed margin of a well,
        Whose patient level peeps its crystal eye
        Right upward, through the bushes, to the sky.
        Oft have I brought thee flowers, on their stalks set
        Like vestal primroses, but dark velvet
        Edges them round, and they have golden pits:
        'Twas there I got them, from the gaps and slits
        In a mossy stone, that sometimes was my seat,
        When all above was faint with mid-day heat.
        And there in strife no burning thoughts to heed,
        I'd bubble up the water through a reed;
        So reaching back to boy-hood: make me ships
        Of moulted feathers, touchwood, alder chips,
        With leaves stuck in them; and the Neptune be
        Of their petty ocean. Oftener, heavily,
        When love-lorn hours had left me less a child,
        I sat contemplating the figures wild
        Of o'er-head clouds melting the mirror through.
        Upon a day, while thus I watch'd, by flew
        A cloudy Cupid, with his bow and quiver;
        So plainly character'd, no breeze would shiver
        The happy chance: so happy, I was fain
        To follow it upon the open plain,
        And, therefore, was just going; when, behold!
        A wonder, fair as any I have told-
        The same bright face I tasted in my sleep,
        Smiling in the clear well. My heart did leap
        Through the cool depth.- It moved as if to flee-
        I started up, when lo! refreshfully
        There came upon my face in plenteous showers
        Dew-drops, and dewy buds, and leaves, and flowers,
        Wrapping all objects from my smothered sight,
        Bathing my spirit in a new delight.
        Aye, such a breathless honey-feel of bliss
        Alone preserved me from the drear abyss
        Of death, for the fair form had gone again.
        Pleasure is oft a visitant; but pain
        Clings cruelly to us, like the gnawing sloth
        On the deer's tender haunches: late, and loth,
        'Tis scar'd away by slow returning pleasure.
        How sickening, how dark the dreadful leisure
        Of weary days, made deeper exquisite,
        By a fore-knowledge of unslumbrous night!
        Like sorrow came upon me, heavier still,
        Than when I wander'd from the poppy hill:
        And a whole age of lingering moments crept
        Sluggishly by, ere more contentment swept
        Away at once the deadly yellow spleen.
        Yes, thrice have I this fair enchantment seen;
        Once more been tortured with renewed life.
        When last the wintry gusts gave over strife
        With the conquering sun of spring, and left the skies
        Warm and serene, but yet with moistened eyes
        In pity of the shatter'd infant buds,-
        That time thou didst adorn, with amber studs,
        My hunting cap, because I laugh'd and smil'd,
        Chatted with thee, and many days exil'd
        All torment from my breast;- 'twas even then,
        Straying about, yet, coop'd up in the den
        Of helpless discontent,- hurling my lance
        From place to place, and following at chance,
        At last, by hap, through some young trees it struck,
        And, plashing among bedded pebbles, stuck
        In the middle of a brook,- whose silver ramble
        Down twenty little falls, through reeds and bramble,
        Tracing along, it brought me to a cave,
        Whence it ran brightly forth, and white did lave
        The nether sides of mossy stones and rock,-
        'Mong which it gurgled blythe adieus, to mock
        Its own sweet grief at parting. Overhead,
        Hung a lush screen of drooping weeds, and spread
        Thick, as to curtain up some wood-nymph's home.
       'Ah! impious mortal, whither do I roam?'
        Said I, low voic'd: 'Ah, whither! 'Tis the grot
       'Of Proserpine, when Hell, obscure and hot,
       'Doth her resign; and where her tender hands
       'She dabbles, on the cool and sluicy sands:
       'Or 'tis the cell of Echo, where she sits,
       'And babbles thorough silence, till her wits
       'Are gone in tender madness, and anon,
       'Faints into sleep, with many a dying tone
       'Of sadness. O that she would take my vows,
       'And breathe them sighingly among the boughs,
       'To sue her gentle ears for whose fair head,
       'Daily, I pluck sweet flowerets from their bed,
       'And weave them dyingly- send honey-whispers
       'Round every leaf, that all those gentle lispers
       'May sigh my love unto her pitying!
       'O charitable Echo! hear, and sing
       'This ditty to her!- tell her'- so I stay'd
        My foolish tongue, and listening, half afraid,
        Stood stupefied with my own empty folly,
        And blushing for the freaks of melancholy.
        Salt tears were coming, when I heard my name
        Most fondly lipp'd, and then these accents came:
       'Endymion! the cave is secreter
       'Than the Isle of Delos. Echo hence shall stir
       'No sighs but sigh-warm kisses, or light noise
       'Of thy combing hand, the while it travelling cloys
       'And trembles through my labyrinthine hair.'
        At that oppress'd I hurried in.- Ah! where
        Are those swift moments? Whither are they fled?
        I'll smile no more, Peona; nor will wed
        Sorrow the way to death; but patiently
        Bear up against it: so farewell, sad sigh;
        And come instead demurest meditation,
        To occupy me wholly, and to fashion
        My pilgrimage for the world's dusky brink.
        No more will I count over, link by link,
        My chain of grief: no longer strive to find
        A half-forgetfulness in mountain wind
        Blustering about my ears: aye, thou shalt see,
        Dearest of sisters, what my life shall be;
        What a calm round of hours shall make my days.
        There is a paly flame of hope that plays
        Where'er I look: but yet, I'll say 'tis naught-
        And here I bid it die. Have not I caught,
        Already, a more healthy countenance?
        By this the sun is setting; we may chance
        Meet some of our near-dwellers with my car."

          This said, he rose, faint-smiling like a star
        Through autumn mists, and took Peona's hand:
        They stept into the boat, and launch'd from land.
                        BOOK II.

        O sovereign power of love! O grief! O balm!
        All records, saving thine, come cool, and calm,
        And shadowy, through the mist of passed years:
        For others, good or bad, hatred and tears
        Have become indolent; but touching thine,
        One sigh doth echo, one poor sob doth pine,
        One kiss brings honey-dew from buried days.
        The woes of Troy, towers smothering o'er their blaze,
        Stiff-holden shields, far-piercing spears, keen blades,
        Struggling, and blood, and shrieks- all dimly fades
        Into some backward corner of the brain:
        Yet, in our very souls, we feel amain
        The close of Troilus and Cressid sweet.
        Hence, pageant history! hence, gilded cheat!
        Swart planet in the universe of deeds!
        Wide sea, that one continuous murmur breeds
        Along the pebbled shore of memory!
        Many old rotten-timber'd boats there be
        Upon thy vaporous bosom, magnified
        To goodly vessels; many a sail of pride,
        And golden keel'd, is left unlaunch'd and dry.
        But wherefore this? What care, though owl did fly
        About the great Athenian admiral's mast?
        What care, though striding Alexander past
        The Indus with his Macedonian numbers?
        Though old Ulysses tortured from his slumbers
        The glutted Cyclops, what care?- Juliet leaning
        Amid her window-flowers,- sighing,- weaning
        Tenderly her fancy from its maiden snow,
        Doth more avail than these: the silver flow
        Of Hero's tears, the swoon of Imogen,
        Fair Pastorella in the bandit's den,
        Are things to brood on with more ardency
        Than the death-day of empires. Fearfully
        Must such conviction come upon his head,
        Who, thus far, discontent, has dared to tread,
        Without one muse's smile, or kind behest,
        The path of love and poesy. But rest,
        In chaffing restlessness, is yet more drear
        Than to be crush'd, in striving to uprear
        Love's standard on the battlements of song.
        So once more days and nights aid me along,
        Like legion'd soldiers.

                                Brain-sick shepherd prince,
        What promise hast thou faithful guarded since
        The day of sacrifice? Or, have new sorrows
        Come with the constant dawn upon thy morrows?
        Alas! 'tis his old grief. For many days,
        Has he been wandering in uncertain ways:
        Through wilderness, and woods of mossed oaks;
        Counting his woe-worn minutes, by the strokes
        Of the lone woodcutter; and listening still,
        Hour after hour, to each lush-leav'd rill.
        Now he is sitting by a shady spring,
        And elbow-deep with feverous fingering
        Stems the upbursting cold: a wild rose tree
        Pavillions him in bloom, and he doth see
        A bud which snares his fancy: lo! but now
        He plucks it, dips its stalk in the water: how!
        It swells, it buds, it flowers beneath his sight;
        And, in the middle, there is softly pight
        A golden butterfly; upon whose wings
        There must be surely character'd strange things,
        For with wide eye he wonders, and smiles oft.

          Lightly this little herald flew aloft,
        Follow'd by glad Endymion's clasped hands:
        Onward it flies. From languor's sullen bands
        His limbs are loos'd, and eager, on he hies
        Dazzled to trace it in the sunny skies.
        It seem'd he flew, the way so easy was;
        And like a new-born spirit did he pass
        Through the green evening quiet in the sun,
        O'er many a heath, through many a woodland dun,
        Through buried paths, where sleepy twilight dreams
        The summer time away. One track unseams
        A wooded cleft, and, far away, the blue
        Of ocean fades upon him; then, anew,
        He sinks adown a solitary glen,
        Where there was never sound of mortal men,
        Saving, perhaps, some snow-light cadences
        Melting to silence, when upon the breeze
        Some holy bark let forth an anthem sweet,
        To cheer itself to Delphi. Still his feet
        Went swift beneath the merry-winged guide,
        Until it reach'd a splashing fountain's side
        That, near a cavern's mouth, for ever pour'd
        Unto the temperate air: then high it soar'd,
        And, downward, suddenly began to dip,
        As if, athirst with so much toil, 'twould sip
        The crystal spout-head: so it did, with touch
        Most delicate, as though afraid to smutch
        Even with mealy gold the waters clear.
        But, at that very touch, to disappear
        So fairy-quick, was strange! Bewildered,
        Endymion sought around, and shook each bed
        Of covert flowers in vain; and then he flung
        Himself along the grass. What gentle tongue,
        What whisperer disturb'd his gloomy rest?
        It was a nymph uprisen to the breast
        In the fountain's pebbly margin, and she stood
        'Mong lillies, like the youngest of the brood.
        To him her dripping hand she softly kist,
        And anxiously began to plait and twist
        Her ringlets round her fingers, saying: "Youth!
        Too long, alas, hast thou starv'd on the ruth,
        The bitterness of love: too long indeed,
        Seeing thou art so gentle. Could I weed
        Thy soul of care, by heavens, I would offer
        All the bright riches of my crystal coffer
        To Amphitrite; all my clear-eyed fish,
        Golden, or rainbow-sided, or purplish,
        Vermilion-tail'd, or finn'd with silvery gauze;
        Yea, or my veined pebble-floor, that draws
        A virgin light to the deep; my grotto-sands
        Tawny and gold, ooz'd slowly from far lands
        By my diligent springs; my level lillies, shells,
        My charming rod, my potent river spells;
        Yes, every thing, even to the pearly cup
        Meander gave me,- for I bubbled up
        To fainting creatures in a desert wild.
        But woe is me, I am but as a child
        To gladden thee; and all I dare to say,
        Is, that I pity thee; that on this day
        I've been thy guide; that thou must wander far
        In other regions, past the scanty bar
        To mortal steps, before thou canst be ta'en
        From every wasting sigh, from every pain,
        Into the gentle bosom of thy love.
        Why it is thus, one knows in heaven above:
        But, a poor Naiad, I guess not. Farewell!
        I have a ditty for my hollow cell."

          Hereat, she vanished from Endymion's gaze,
        Who brooded o'er the water in amaze:
        The dashing fount pour'd on, and where its pool
        Lay, half asleep, in grass and rushes cool,
        Quick waterflies and gnats were sporting still,
        And fish were dimpling, as if good nor ill
        Had fallen out that hour. The wanderer,
        Holding his forehead, to keep off the bur
        Of smothering fancies, patiently sat down;
        And, while beneath the evening's sleepy frown
        Glow-worms began to trim their starry lamps,
        Thus breath'd he to himself: "Whoso encamps
        To take a fancied city of delight,
        O what a wretch is he! and when 'tis his,
        After long toil and travelling, to miss
        The kernel of his hopes, how more than vile:
        Yet, for him there's refreshment even in toil;
        Another city doth he set about,
        Free from the smallest pebble-head of doubt
        That he will seize on trickling honey-combs;
        Alas, he finds them dry; and then he foams,
        And onward to another city speeds.
        But this is human life: the war, the deeds,
        The disappointment, the anxiety,
        Imagination's struggles, far and nigh,
        All human; bearing in themselves this good,
        That they are still the air, the subtle food,
        To make us feel existence, and to show
        How quiet death is. Where soil is men grow,
        Whether to weeds or flowers; but for me,
        There is no depth to strike in: I can see
        Naught earthly worth my compassing; so stand
        Upon a misty, jutting head of land-
        Alone? No, no; and by the Orphean lute,
        When mad Eurydice is listening to't;
        I'd rather stand upon this misty peak,
        With not a thing to sigh for, or to seek,
        But the soft shadow of my thrice-seen love,
        Than be- I care not what. O meekest dove
        Of heaven! O Cynthia, ten-times bright and fair!
        From thy blue throne, now filling all the air,
        Glance but one little beam of temper'd light
        Into my bosom, that the dreadful might
        And tyranny of love be somewhat scar'd!
        Yet do not so, sweet queen; one torment spar'd,
        Would give a pang to jealous misery,
        Worse than the torment's self: but rather tie
        Large wings upon my shoulders, and point out
        My love's far dwelling. Though the playful rout
        Of Cupids shun thee, too divine art thou,
        Too keen in beauty, for thy silver prow
        Not to have dipp'd in love's most gentle stream.
        O be propitious, nor severely deem
        My madness impious; for, by all the stars
        That tend thy bidding, I do think the bars
        That kept my spirit in are burst- that I
        Am sailing with thee through the dizzy sky!
        How beautiful thou art! The world how deep!
        How tremulous-dazzlingly the wheels sweep
        Around their axle! Then these gleaming reins,
        How lithe! When this thy chariot attains
        Its airy goal, haply some bower veils
        Those twilight eyes? Those eyes!- my spirit fails-
        Dear goddess, help! or the wide-gaping air
        Will gulph me- help!"- At this with madden'd stare,
        And lifted hands, and trembling lips he stood;
        Like old Deucalion mountain'd o'er the flood,
        Or blind Orion hungry for the morn.
        And, but from the deep cavern there was borne
        A voice, he had been froze to senseless stone;
        Nor sigh of his, nor plaint, nor passion'd moan
        Had more been heard. Thus swell'd it forth: "Descend,
        Young mountaineer! descend where alleys bend
        Into the sparry hollows of the world!
        Oft hast thou seen bolts of the thunder hurl'd
        As from thy threshold; day by day hast been
        A little lower than the chilly sheen
        Of icy pinnacles, and dipp'dst thine arms
        Into the deadening ether that still charms
        Their marble being: now, as deep profound
        As those are high, descend! He ne'er is crown'd
        With immortality, who fears to follow
        Where airy voices lead: so through the hollow,
        The silent mysteries of earth, descend!"

          He heard but the last words, nor could contend
        One moment in reflection: for he fled
        Into the fearful deep, to hide his head
        From the clear moon, the trees, and coming madness.

          'Twas far too strange, and wonderful for sadness;
        Sharpening, by degrees, his appetite
        To dive into the deepest. Dark, nor light,
        The region; nor bright, nor sombre wholly,
        But mingled up; a gleaming melancholy;
        A dusky empire and its diadems;
        One faint eternal eventide of gems.
        Aye, millions sparkled on a vein of gold,
        Along whose track the prince quick footsteps told,
        With all its lines abrupt and angular:
        Out-shooting sometimes, like a meteor-star,
        Through a vast antre; then the metal woof,
        Like Vulcan's rainbow, with some monstrous roof
        Curves hugely: now, far in the deep abyss,
        It seems an angry lightning, and doth hiss
        Fancy into belief: anon it leads
        Through winding passages, where sameness breeds
        Vexing conceptions of some sudden change;
        Whether to silver grots, or giant range
        Of sapphire columns, or fantastic bridge
        Athwart a flood of crystal. On a ridge
        Now fareth he, that o'er the vast beneath
        Towers like an ocean-cliff, and whence he seeth
        A hundred waterfalls, whose voices come
        But as the murmuring surge. Chilly and numb
        His bosom grew, when first he, far away
        Descried an orbed diamond, set to fray
        Old darkness from his throne: 'twas like the sun
        Uprisen o'er chaos: and with such a stun
        Came the amazement, that, absorb'd in it,
        He saw not fiercer wonders- past the wit
        Of any spirit to tell, but one of those
        Who, when this planet's sphering time doth close,
        Will be its high remembrancers: who they?
        The mighty ones who have made eternal day
        For Greece and England. While astonishment
        With deep-drawn sighs was quieting, he went
        Into a marble gallery, passing through
        A mimic temple, so complete and true
        In sacred custom, that he well nigh fear'd
        To search it inwards; whence far off appear'd,
        Through a long pillar'd vista, a fair shrine,
        And just beyond, on light tiptoe divine,
        A quiver'd Dian. Stepping awfully,
        The youth approach'd; oft turning his veil'd eye
        Down sidelong aisles, and into niches old.
        And when, more near against the marble cold
        He had touch'd his forehead, he began to thread
        All courts and passages, where silence dead
        Rous'd by his whispering footsteps murmured faint:
        And long he travers'd to and fro, to acquaint
        Himself with every mystery, and awe;
        Till, weary, he sat down before the maw
        Of a wide outlet, fathomless and dim,
        To wild uncertainty and shadows grim.
        There, when new wonders ceas'd to float before,
        And thoughts of self came on, how crude and sore
        The journey homeward to habitual self
        A mad-pursuing of the fog-born elf,
        Whose flitting lantern, through rude nettle-briar,
        Cheats us into a swamp, into a fire,
        Into the bosom of a hated thing.

          What misery most drowningly doth sing
        In lone Endymion's ear, now he has raught
        The goal of consciousness? Ah, 'tis the thought,
        The deadly feel of solitude: for lo!
        He cannot see the heavens, nor the flow
        Of rivers, nor hill-flowers running wild
        In pink and purple chequer, nor, up-pil'd,
        The cloudy rack slow journeying in the west,
        Like herded elephants; nor felt, nor prest
        Cool grass, nor tasted the fresh slumberous air;
        But far from such companionship to wear
        An unknown time, surcharg'd with grief, away,
        Was now his lot. And must he patient stay,
        Tracing fantastic figures with his spear?
       "No!" exclaim'd he, "why should I tarry here?"
        No! loudly echoed times innumerable.
        At which he straightway started, and 'gan tell
        His paces back into the temple's chief;
        Warming and glowing strong in the belief
        Of help from Dian: so that when again
        He caught her airy form, thus did he plain,
        Moving more near the while: "O Haunter chaste
        Of river sides, and woods, and heathy waste,
        Where with thy silver bow and arrows keen
        Art thou now forested? O woodland Queen,
        What smoothest air thy smoother forehead woos?
        Where dost thou listen to the wide halloos
        Of thy disparted nymphs? Through what dark tree
        Glimmers thy crescent? Wheresoe'er it be,
        'Tis in the breath of heaven: thou dost taste
        Freedom as none can taste it, nor dost waste
        Thy loveliness in dismal elements;
        But, finding in our green earth sweet contents,
        There livest blissfully. Ah, if to thee
        It feels Elysian, how rich to me,
        An exil'd mortal, sounds its pleasant name!
        Within my breast there lives a choking flame-
        O let me cool't the zephyr-boughs among!
        A homeward fever parches up my tongue-
        O let me slake it at the running springs!
        Upon my ear a noisy nothing rings-
        O let me once more hear the linnet's note!
        Before mine eyes thick films and shadows float-
        O let me 'noint them with the heaven's light!
        Dost thou now lave thy feet and ankles white?
        O think how sweet to me the freshening sluice!
        Dost thou now please thy thirst with berry-juice?
        O think how this dry palate would rejoice!
        If in soft slumber thou dost hear my voice,
        O think how I should love a bed of flowers!-
        Young goddess! let me see my native bowers!
        Deliver me from this rapacious deep!"

          Thus ending loudly, as he would o'erleap
        His destiny, alert he stood: but when
        Obstinate silence came heavily again,
        Feeling about for its old couch of space
        And airy cradle, lowly bow'd his face
        Desponding, o'er the marble floor's cold thrill.
        But 'twas not long; for, sweeter than the rill
        To its old channel, or a swollen tide
        To margin sallows, were the leaves he spied,
        And flowers, and wreaths, and ready myrtle crowns
        Up heaping through the slab: refreshment drowns
        Itself, and strives its own delights to hide-
        Nor in one spot alone; the floral pride
        In a long whispering birth enchanted grew
        Before his footsteps; as when heav'd anew
        Old ocean rolls a lengthened wave to the shore,
        Down whose green back the short-liv'd foam, all hoar,
        Bursts gradual, with a wayward indolence.

          Increasing still in heart, and pleasant sense,
        Upon his fairy journey on he hastes;
        So anxious for the end, he scarcely wastes
        One moment with his hand among the sweets:
        Onward he goes- he stops- his bosom beats
        As plainly in his ear, as the faint charm
        Of which the throbs were born. This still alarm,
        This sleepy music, forc'd him walk tiptoe:
        For it came more softly than the east could blow
        Arion's magic to the Atlantic isles;
        Or than the west, made jealous by the smiles
        Of thron'd Apollo, could breathe back the lyre
        To seas Ionian and Tyrian.

          O did he ever live, that lonely man,
        Who lov'd- and music slew not? 'Tis the pest
        Of love, that fairest joys give most unrest;
        That things of delicate and tenderest worth
        Are swallow'd all, and made a seared dearth,
        By one consuming flame: it doth immerse
        And suffocate true blessings in a curse.
        Half-happy, by comparison of bliss,
        Is miserable. 'Twas even so with this
        Dew-dropping melody, in the Carian's ear;
        First heaven, then hell, and then forgotten clear,
        Vanish'd in elemental passion.

          And down some swart abysm he had gone,
        Had not a heavenly guide benignant led
        To where thick myrtle branches, 'gainst his head
        Brushing, awakened: then the sounds again
        Went noiseless as a passing noontide rain
        Over a bower, where little space he stood;
        For as the sunset peeps into a wood
        So saw he panting light, and towards it went
        Through winding alleys; and lo, wonderment!
        Upon soft verdure saw, one here, one there,
        Cupids a slumbering on their pinions fair.

          After a thousand mazes overgone,
        At last, with sudden step, he came upon
        A chamber, myrtle wall'd, embowered high,
        Full of light, incense, tender minstrelsy,
        And more of beautiful and strange beside:
        For on a silken couch of rosy pride,
        In midst of all, there lay a sleeping youth
        Of fondest beauty; fonder, in fair sooth,
        Than sighs could fathom, or contentment reach:
        And coverlids gold-tinted like the peach,
        Or ripe October's faded marigolds,
        Fell sleek about him in a thousand folds-
        Not hiding up an Apollonian curve
        Of neck and shoulder, nor the tenting swerve
        Of knee from knee, nor ankles pointing light;
        But rather, giving them to the filled sight
        Officiously. Sideway his face repos'd
        On one white arm, and tenderly unclos'd,
        By tenderest pressure, a faint damask mouth
        To slumbery pout; just as the morning south
        Disparts a dew-lipp'd rose. Above his head,
        Four lilly stalks did their white honours wed
        To make a coronal; and round him grew
        All tendrils green, of every bloom and hue,
        Together intertwin'd and trammel'd fresh:
        The vine of glossy sprout; the ivy mesh,
        Shading its Ethiop berries; and woodbine,
        Of velvet leaves and bugle-blooms divine;
        Convolvulus in streaked vases flush;
        The creeper, mellowing for an autumn blush;
        And virgin's bower, trailing airily;
        With others of the sisterhood. Hard by,
        Stood serene Cupids watching silently.
        One, kneeling to a lyre, touch'd the strings,
        Muffling to death the pathos with his wings;
        And, ever and anon, uprose to look
        At the youth's slumber; while another took
        A willow-bough, distilling odorous dew,
        And shook it on his hair; another flew
        In through the woven roof, and fluttering-wise
        Rain'd violets upon his sleeping eyes.

          At these enchantments, and yet many more,
        The breathless Latmian wonder'd o'er and o'er;
        Until, impatient in embarrassment,
        He forthright pass'd, and lightly treading went
        To that same feather'd lyrist, who straightway,
        Smiling, thus whisper'd: "Though from upper day
        Thou art a wanderer, and thy presence here
        Might seem unholy, be of happy cheer!
        For 'tis the nicest touch of human honour,
        When some ethereal and high-favouring donor
        Presents immortal bowers to mortal sense;
        As now 'tis done to thee, Endymion. Hence
        Was I in no wise startled. So recline
        Upon these living flowers. Here is wine,
        Alive with sparkles- never, I aver,
        Since Ariadne was a vintager,
        So cool a purple: taste these juicy pears,
        Sent me by sad Vertumnus, when his fears
        Were high about Pomona: here is cream,
        Deepening to richness from a snowy gleam;
        Sweeter than that nurse Amalthea skimm'd
        For the boy Jupiter: and here, undimm'd
        By any touch, a bunch of blooming plums
        Ready to melt between an infant's gums:
        And here is manna pick'd from Syrian trees,
        In starlight, by the three Hesperides.
        Feast on, and meanwhile I will let thee know
        Of all these things around us." He did so,
        Still brooding o'er the cadence of his lyre;
        And thus: "I need not any hearing tire
        By telling how the sea-born goddess pin'd
        For a mortal youth, and how she strove to bind
        Him all in all unto her doting self.
        Who would not be so prison'd? but, fond elf,
        He was content to let her amorous plea
        Faint through his careless arms; content to see
        An unseiz'd heaven dying at his feet;
        Content, O fool! to make a cold retreat,
        When on the pleasant grass such love, lovelorn,
        Lay sorrowing; when every tear was born
        Of diverse passion; when her lips and eyes
        Were clos'd in sullen moisture, and quick sighs
        Came vex'd and pettish through her nostrils small.
        Hush! no exclaim- yet, justly mightst thou call
        Curses upon his head.- I was half glad,
        But my poor mistress went distract and mad,
        When the boar tusk'd him: so away she flew
        To Jove's high throne, and by her plainings drew
        Immortal tear-drops down the thunderer's beard;
        Whereon, it was decreed he should be rear'd
        Each summer time to life. Lo! this is he,
        That same Adonis, safe in the privacy
        Of this still region all his winter-sleep.
        Aye, sleep; for when our love-sick queen did weep
        Over his waned corse, the tremulous shower
        Heal'd up the wound, and, with a balmy power,
        Medicined death to a lengthened drowsiness:
        The which she fills with visions, and doth dress
        In all this quiet luxury; and hath set
        Us young immortals, without any let,
        To watch his slumber through. 'Tis well nigh pass'd,
        Even to a moment's filling up, and fast
        She scuds with summer breezes, to pant through
        The first long kiss, warm firstling, to renew
        Embower'd sports in Cytherea's isle.
        Look! how those winged listeners all this while
        Stand anxious: see! behold!"- This clamant word
        Broke through the careful silence; for they heard
        A rustling noise of leaves, and out there flutter'd
        Pigeons and doves: Adonis something mutter'd
        The while one hand, that erst upon his thigh
        Lay dormant, mov'd convuls'd and gradually
        Up to his forehead. Then there was a hum
        Of sudden voices, echoing, "Come! come!
        Arise! awake! Clear summer has forth walk'd
        Unto the clover-sward, and she has talk'd
        Full soothingly to every nested finch:
        Rise, Cupids! or we'll give the blue-bell pinch
        To your dimpled arms. Once more sweet life begin!"
        At this, from every side they hurried in,
        Rubbing their sleepy eyes with lazy wrists,
        And doubling over head their little fists
        In backward yawns. But all were soon alive:
        For as delicious wine doth, sparkling, dive
        In nectar'd clouds and curls through water fair,
        So from the arbour roof down swell'd an air
        Odorous and enlivening; making all
        To laugh, and play, and sing, and loudly call
        For their sweet queen: when lo! the wreathed green
        Disparted, and far upward could be seen
        Blue heaven, and a silver car, air-borne,
        Whose silent wheels, fresh wet from clouds of morn,
        Spun off a drizzling dew,- which falling chill
        On soft Adonis' shoulders, made him still
        Nestle and turn uneasily about.
        Soon were the white doves plain, with neck stretch'd out,
        And silken traces lighten'd in descent;
        And soon, returning from love's banishment,
        Queen Venus leaning downward open arm'd:
        Her shadow fell upon his breast, and charm'd
        A tumult to his heart, and a new life
        Into his eyes. Ah, miserable strife,
        But for her comforting! unhappy sight,
        But meeting her blue orbs! Who, who can write
        Of these first minutes? The unchariest muse
        To embracements warm as theirs makes coy excuse.

          O it has ruffled every spirit there,
        Saving Love's self, who stands superb to share
        The general gladness: awfully he stands;
        A sovereign quell is in his waving hands;
        No sight can bear the lightning of his bow;
        His quiver is mysterious, none can know
        What themselves think of it; from forth his eyes
        There darts strange light of varied hues and dyes:
        A scowl is sometimes on his brow, but who
        Look full upon it feel anon the blue
        Of his fair eyes run liquid through their souls.
        Endymion feels it, and no more controls
        The burning prayer within him; so, bent low,
        He had begun a plaining of his woe.
        But Venus, bending forward, said: "My child,
        Favour this gentle youth; his days are wild
        With love- he- but alas! too well I see
        Thou know'st the deepness of his misery.
        Ah, smile not so, my son: I tell thee true,
        That when through heavy hours I used to rue
        The endless sleep of this new-born Adon',
        This stranger aye I pitied. For upon
        A dreary morning once I fled away
        Into the breezy clouds, to weep and pray
        For this my love: for vexing Mars had teaz'd
        Me even to tears: thence, when a little eas'd,
        Down-looking, vacant, through a hazy wood,
        I saw this youth as he despairing stood:
        Those same dark curls blown vagrant in the wind;
        Those same full fringed lids a constant blind
        Over his sullen eyes: I saw him throw
        Himself on wither'd leaves, even as though
        Death had come sudden; for no jot he mov'd,
        Yet mutter'd wildly. I could hear he lov'd
        Some fair immortal, and that his embrace
        Had zoned her through the night. There is no trace
        Of this in heaven: I have mark'd each cheek,
        And find it is the vainest thing to seek;
        And that of all things 'tis kept secretest.
        Endymion! one day thou wilt be blest:
        So still obey the guiding hand that fends
        Thee safely through these wonders for sweet ends.
        'Tis a concealment needful in extreme;
        And if I guess'd not so, the sunny beam
        Thou shouldst mount up to with me. Now adieu!
        Here must we leave thee."- At these words upflew
        The impatient doves, uprose the floating car,
        Up went the hum celestial. High afar
        The Latmian saw them minish into naught;
        And, when all were clear vanish'd, still he caught
        A vivid lightning from that dreadful bow.
        When all was darkened, with AEtnean throe
        The earth clos'd- gave a solitary moan-
        And left him once again in twilight lone.

          He did not rave, he did not stare aghast,
        For all those visions were o'ergone, and past,
        And he in loneliness: he felt assur'd
        Of happy times, when all he had endur'd
        Would seem a feather to the mighty prize.
        So, with unusual gladness, on he hies
        Through caves, and palaces of mottled ore,
        Gold dome, and crystal wall, and turquois floor,
        Black polish'd porticos of awful shade,
        And, at the last, a diamond balustrade,
        Leading afar past wild magnificence,
        Spiral through ruggedest loopholes, and thence
        Stretching across a void, then guiding o'er
        Enormous chasms, where, all foam and roar,
        Streams subterranean teaze their granite beds;
        Then heighten'd just above the silvery heads
        Of a thousand fountains, so that he could dash
        The waters with his spear; but at the splash,
        Done heedlessly, those spouting columns rose
        Sudden a poplar's height, and 'gan to enclose
        His diamond path with fretwork, streaming round
        Alive, and dazzling cool, and with a sound,
        Haply, like dolphin tumults, when sweet shells
        Welcome the float of Thetis. Long he dwells
        On this delight; for, every minute's space,
        The streams with changed magic interlace:
        Sometimes like delicatest lattices,
        Cover'd with crystal vines; then weeping trees.
        Moving about as in a gentle wind,
        Which, in a wink, to watery gauze refin'd,
        Pour'd into shapes of curtain'd canopies,
        Spangled, and rich with liquid broideries
        Of flowers, peacocks, swans, and naiads fair.
        Swifter than lightning went these wonders rare;
        And then the water, into stubborn streams
        Collecting, mimick'd the wrought oaken beams,
        Pillars, and frieze, and high fantastic roof,
        Of those dusk places in times far aloof
        Cathedrals call'd. He bade a loth farewell
        To these founts Protean, passing gulph, and dell,
        And torrent, and ten thousand jutting shapes,
        Half seen through deepest gloom, and griesly gapes,
        Blackening on every side, and overhead
        A vaulted dome like Heaven's, far bespread
        With starlight gems: aye, all so huge and strange,
        The solitary felt a hurried change
        Working within him into something dreary,-
        Vex'd like a morning eagle, lost, and weary,
        And purblind amid foggy, midnight wolds.
        But he revives at once: for who beholds
        New sudden things, nor casts his mental slough?
        Forth from a rugged arch, in the dusk below,
        Came mother Cybele! alone- alone-
        In sombre chariot; dark foldings thrown
        About her majesty, and front death-pale,
        With turrets crown'd. Four maned lions hale
        The sluggish wheels; solemn their toothed maws,
        Their surly eyes brow-hidden, heavy paws
        Uplifted drowsily, and nervy tails
        Cowering their tawny brushes. Silent sails
        This shadowy queen athwart, and faints away
        In another gloomy arch.

                                  Wherefore delay,
        Young traveller, in such a mournful place?
        Art thou wayworn, or canst not further trace
        The diamond path? And does it indeed end
        Abrupt in middle air? Yet earthward bend
        Thy forehead, and to Jupiter cloud-borne
        Call ardently! He was indeed wayworn;
        Abrupt, in middle air, his way was lost;
        To cloud-borne Jove he bowed, and there crost
        Towards him a large eagle, 'twixt whose wings,
        Without one impious word, himself he flings,
        Committed to the darkness and the gloom:
        Down, down, uncertain to what pleasant doom,
        Swift as a fathoming plummet down he fell
        Through unknown things; till exhaled asphodel,
        And rose, with spicy fannings interbreath'd,
        Came swelling forth where little caves were wreath'd
        So thick with leaves and mosses, that they seem'd
        Large honey-combs of green, and freshly teem'd
        With airs delicious. In the greenest nook
        The eagle landed him, and farewell took.

          It was a jasmine bower, all bestrown
        With golden moss. His every sense had grown
        Ethereal for pleasure; 'bove his head
        Flew a delight half-graspable; his tread
        Was Hesperean; to his capable ears
        Silence was music from the holy spheres;
        A dewy luxury was in his eyes;
        The little flowers felt his pleasant sighs
        And stirr'd them faintly. Verdant cave and cell
        He wander'd through, oft wondering at such swell
        Of sudden exaltation: but, "Alas!"
        Said he, "will all this gush of feeling pass
        Away in solitude? And must they wane,
        Like melodies upon a sandy plain,
        Without an echo? Then shall I be left
        So sad, so melancholy, so bereft!
        Yet still I feel immortal! O my love,
        My breath of life, where art thou? High above,
        Dancing before the morning gates of heaven?
        Or keeping watch among those starry seven,
        Old Atlas' children? Art a maid of the waters,
        One of shell-winding Triton's bright-hair'd daughters?
        Or art, impossible! a nymph of Dian's,
        Weaving a coronal of tender scions
        For very idleness? Where'er thou art,
        Methinks it now is at my will to start
        Into thine arms; to scare Aurora's train,
        And snatch thee from the morning; o'er the main
        To scud like a wild bird, and take thee off
        From thy sea-foamy cradle; or to doff
        Thy shepherd vest, and woo thee mid fresh leaves.
        No, no, too eagerly my soul deceives
        Its powerless self: I know this cannot be.
        O let me then by some sweet dreaming flee
        To her entrancements: hither, Sleep, awhile!
        Hither, most gentle Sleep! and soothing foil
        For some few hours the coming solitude."

          Thus spake he, and that moment felt endued
        With power to dream deliciously; so wound
        Through a dim passage, searching till he found
        The smoothest mossy bed and deepest, where
        He threw himself, and just into the air
        Stretching his indolent arms, he took, O bliss!
        A naked waist: "Fair Cupid, whence is this?"
        A well-known voice sigh'd, "Sweetest, here am I!"
        At which soft ravishment, with doting cry
        They trembled to each other.- Helicon!
        O fountain'd hill! Old Homer's Helicon!
        That thou wouldst spout a little streamlet o'er
        These sorry pages; then the verse would soar
        And sing above this gentle pair, like lark
        Over his nested young: but all is dark
        Around thine aged top, and thy clear fount
        Exhales in mists to heaven. Aye, the count
        Of mighty Poets is made up; the scroll
        Is folded by the Muses; the bright roll
        Is in Apollo's hand: our dazed eyes
        Have seen a new tinge in the western skies:
        The world has done its duty. Yet, oh yet,
        Although the sun of poesy is set,
        These lovers did embrace, and we must weep
        That there is no old power left to steep
        A quill immortal in their joyous tears.
        Long time in silence did their anxious fears
        Question that thus it was; long time they lay
        Fondling and kissing every doubt away;
        Long time ere soft caressing sobs began
        To mellow into words, and then there ran
        Two bubbling springs of talk from their sweet lips.
       "O known Unknown! from whom my being sips
        Such darling essence, wherefore may I not
        Be ever in these arms? in this sweet spot
        Pillow my chin for ever? ever press
        These toying hands and kiss their smooth excess?
        Why not for ever and for ever feel
        That breath about my eyes? Ah, thou wilt steal
        Away from me again, indeed, indeed-
        Thou wilt be gone away, and wilt not heed
        My lonely madness. Speak, delicious fair!
        Is- is it to be so? No! Who will dare
        To pluck thee from me? And, of thine own will,
        Full well I feel thou wouldst not leave me. Still
        Let me entwine thee surer, surer- now
        How can we part? Elysium! who art thou?
        Who, that thou canst not be for ever here,
        Or lift me with thee to some starry sphere?
        Enchantress! tell me by this soft embrace,
        By the most soft completion of thy face,
        Those lips, O slippery blisses, twinkling eyes
        And by these tenderest, milky sovereignties-
        These tenderest, and by the nectar-wine,
        The passion"- "O dov'd Ida the divine!
        Endymion! dearest! Ah, unhappy me!
        His soul will 'scape us- O felicity!
        How he does love me! His poor temples beat
        To the very tune of love- how sweet, sweet, sweet.
        Revive, dear youth, or I shall faint and die;
        Revive, or these soft hours will hurry by
        In tranced dulness; speak, and let that spell
        Affright this lethargy! I cannot quell
        Its heavy pressure, and will press at least
        My lips to thine, that they may richly feast
        Until we taste the life of love again.
        What! dost thou move? dost kiss? O bliss! O pain!
        I love thee, youth, more than I can conceive;
        And so long absence from thee doth bereave
        My soul of any rest: yet must I hence:
        Yet, can I not to starry eminence
        Uplift thee; nor for very shame can own
        Myself to thee: Ah, dearest, do not groan
        Or thou wilt force me from this secrecy,
        And I must blush in heaven. O that I
        Had done't already; that the dreadful smiles
        At my lost brightness, my impassion'd wiles,
        Had waned from Olympus' solemn height,
        And from all serious Gods; that our delight
        Was quite forgotten, save of us alone!
        And wherefore so ashamed? 'Tis but to atone
        For endless pleasure, by some coward blushes:
        Yet must I be a coward!- Horror rushes
        Too palpable before me- the sad look
        Of Jove- Minerva's start- no bosom shook
        With awe of purity- no Cupid pinion
        In reverence vailed- my crystalline dominion
        Half lost, and all old hymns made nullity!
        But what is this to love? O I could fly
        With thee into the ken of heavenly powers,
        So thou wouldst thus, for many sequent hours,
        Press me so sweetly. Now I swear at once
        That I am wise, that Pallas is a dunce-
        Perhaps her love like mine is but unknown-
        O I do think that I have been alone
        In chastity: yes, Pallas has been sighing,
        While every eve saw me my hair uptying
        With fingers cool as aspen leaves. Sweet love,
        I was as vague as solitary dove,
        Nor knew that nests were built. Now a soft kiss-
        Aye, by that kiss, I vow an endless bliss,
        An immortality of passion's thine:
        Ere long I will exalt thee to the shine
        Of heaven ambrosial; and we will shade
        Ourselves whole summers by a river glade;
        And I will tell thee stories of the sky,
        And breathe thee whispers of its minstrelsy.
        My happy love will overwing all bounds!
        O let me melt into thee; let the sounds
        Of our close voices marry at their birth;
        Let us entwine hoveringly- O dearth
        Of human words! roughness of mortal speech!
        Lispings empyrean will I sometime teach
        Thine honied tongue- lute-breathings, which I gasp
        To have thee understand, now while I clasp
        Thee thus, and weep for fondness- I am pain'd,
        Endymion: woe! woe! is grief contain'd
        In the very deeps of pleasure, my sole life?"-
        Hereat, with many sobs, her gentle strife
        Melted into a languor. He return'd
        Entranced vows and tears.

                                 Ye who have yearn'd
        With too much passion, will here stay and pity,
        For the mere sake of truth; as 'tis a ditty
        Not of these days, but long ago 'twas told
        By a cavern wind unto a forest old;
        And then the forest told it in a dream
        To a sleeping lake, whose cool and level gleam
        A poet caught as he was journeying
        To Phoebus' shrine; and in it he did fling
        His weary limbs, bathing an hour's space,
        And after, straight in that inspired place
        He sang the story up into the air,
        Giving it universal freedom. There
        Has it been ever sounding for those ears
        Whose tips are glowing hot. The legend cheers
        Yon centinel stars; and he who listens to it
        Must surely be self-doom'd or he will rue it:
        For quenchless burnings come upon the heart,
        Made fiercer by a fear lest any part
        Should be engulphed in the eddying wind.
        As much as here is penn'd doth always find
        A resting place, thus much comes clear and plain;
        Anon the strange voice is upon the wane-
        And 'tis but echo'd from departing sound,
        That the fair visitant at last unwound
        Her gentle limbs, and left the youth asleep.-
        Thus the tradition of the gusty deep.

          Now turn we to our former chroniclers.-
        Endymion awoke, that grief of hers
        Sweet paining on his ear: he sickly guess'd
        How lone he was once more, and sadly press'd
        His empty arms together, hung his head,
        And most forlorn upon that widow'd bed
        Sat silently. Love's madness he had known:
        Often with more than tortured lion's groan
        Moanings had burst from him; but now that rage
        Had pass'd away: no longer did he wage
        A rough-voic'd war against the dooming stars.
        No, he had felt too much for such harsh jars:
        The lyre of his soul AEolian tun'd
        Forgot all violence, and but commun'd
        With melancholy thought: O he had swoon'd
        Drunken from pleasure's nipple; and his love
        Henceforth was dove-like.- Loth was he to move
        From the imprinted couch, and when he did,
        'Twas with slow, languid paces, and face hid
        In muffling hands. So temper'd, out he stray'd
        Half seeing visions that might have dismay'd
        Alecto's serpents; ravishments more keen
        Than Hermes' pipe, when anxious he did lean
        Over eclipsing eyes: and at the last
        It was a sounding grotto, vaulted, vast,
        O'er studded with a thousand, thousand pearls,
        And crimson mouthed shells with stubborn curls,
        Of every shape and size, even to the bulk
        In which whales arbour close, to brood and sulk
        Against an endless storm. Moreover too,
        Fish-semblances, of green and azure hue,
        Ready to snort their streams. In this cool wonder
        Endymion sat down, and 'gan to ponder
        On all his life: his youth, up to the day
        When 'mid acclaim, and feasts, and garlands gay,
        He stept upon his shepherd throne: the look
        Of his white palace in wild forest nook,
        And all the revels he had lorded there:
        Each tender maiden whom he once thought fair,
        With every friend and fellow-woodlander-
        Pass'd like a dream before him. Then the spur
        Of the old bards to mighty deeds: his plans
        To nurse the golden age 'mong shepherd clans:
        That wondrous night: the great Pan-festival:
        His sister's sorrow; and his wanderings all,
        Until into the earth's deep maw he rush'd:
        Then all its buried magic, till it flush'd
        High with excessive love. "And now," thought he,
       "How long must I remain in jeopardy
        Of blank amazements that amaze no more?
        Now I have tasted her sweet soul to the core
        All other depths are shallow: essences,
        Once spiritual, are like muddy lees,
        Meant but to fertilize my earthly root,
        And make my branches lift a golden fruit
        Into the bloom of heaven: other light,
        Though it be quick and sharp enough to blight
        The Olympian eagle's vision, is dark,
        Dark as the parentage of chaos. Hark!
        My silent thoughts are echoing from these shells;
        Or they are but the ghosts, the dying swells
        Of noises far away?- list!"- Hereupon
        He kept an anxious ear. The humming tone
        Came louder, and behold, there as he lay,
        On either side outgush'd, with misty spray,
        A copious spring; and both together dash'd
        Swift, mad, fantastic round the rocks and lash'd
        Among the conchs and shells of the lofty grot,
        Leaving a trickling dew. At last they shot
        Down from the ceiling's height, pouring a noise
        As of some breathless racers whose hopes poize
        Upon the last few steps, and with spent force
        Along the ground they took a winding course.
        Endymion follow'd- for it seem'd that one
        Ever pursued, the other strove to shun-
        Follow'd their languid mazes, till well nigh
        He had left thinking of the mystery,-
        And was now rapt in tender hoverings
        Over the vanish'd bliss. Ah! what is it sings
        His dream away? What melodies are these?
        They sound as through the whispering of trees,
        Not native in such barren vaults. Give ear!

          "O Arethusa, peerless nymph! why fear
        Such tenderness as mine? Great Dian, why,
        Why didst thou hear her prayer? O that I
        Were rippling round her dainty fairness now,
        Circling about her waist, and striving how
        To entice her to a dive! then stealing in
        Between her luscious lips and eyelids thin.
        O that her shining hair was in the sun,
        And I distilling from it thence to run
        In amorous rillets down her shrinking form!
        To linger on her lilly shoulders, warm
        Between her kissing breasts, and every charm
        Touch raptur'd!- See how painfully I flow:
        Fair maid, be pitiful to my great woe.
        Stay, stay thy weary course, and let me lead,
        A happy wooer, to the flowery mead
        Where all that beauty snar'd me."- "Cruel god,
        Desist! or my offended mistress' nod
        Will stagnate all thy fountains:- teaze me not
        With syren words- Ah, have I really got
        Such power to madden thee? And is it true-
        Away, away, or I shall dearly rue
        My very thoughts: in mercy then away,
        Kindest Alpheus, for should I obey
        My own dear will, 'twould be a deadly bane.
        O, Oread-Queen! would that thou hadst a pain
        Like this of mine, then would I fearless turn
        And be a criminal. Alas, I burn,
        I shudder- gentle river, get thee hence.
        Alpheus! thou enchanter! every sense
        Of mine was once made perfect in these woods.
        Fresh breezes, bowery lawns, and innocent floods,
        Ripe fruits, and lonely couch, contentment gave;
        But ever since I heedlessly did lave
        In thy deceitful stream, a panting glow
        Grew strong within me: wherefore serve me so,
        And call it love? Alas, 'twas cruelty.
        Not once more did I close my happy eye
        Amid the thrushes' song. Away! Avaunt!
        O 'twas a cruel thing."- "Now thou dost taunt
        So softly, Arethusa, that I think
        If thou wast playing on my shady brink,
        Thou wouldst bathe once again. Innocent maid!
        Stifle thine heart no more; nor be afraid
        Of angry powers: there are deities
        Will shade us with their wings. Those fitful sighs
        'Tis almost death to hear: O let me pour
        A dewy balm upon them!- fear no more,
        Sweet Arethusa! Dian's self must feel
        Sometime these very pangs. Dear maiden, steal
        Blushing into my soul, and let us fly
        These dreary caverns for the open sky.
        I will delight thee all my winding course,
        From the green sea up to my hidden source
        About Arcadian forests; and will show
        The channels where my coolest waters flow
        Through mossy rocks; where, 'mid exuberant green,
        I roam in pleasant darkness, more unseen
        Than Saturn in his exile; where I brim
        Round flowery islands, and take thence a skim
        Of mealy sweets, which myriads of bees
        Buzz from their honey'd wings: and thou shouldst please
        Thyself to choose the richest, where we might
        Be incense-pillow'd every summer night.
        Doff all sad fears, thou white deliciousness,
        And let us be thus comforted; unless
        Thou couldst rejoice to see my hopeless stream
        Hurry distracted from Sol's temperate beam,
        And pour to death along some hungry sands."-
       "What can I do, Alpheus? Dian stands
        Severe before me: persecuting fate!
        Unhappy Arethusa! thou wast late
        A huntress free in"- At this, sudden fell
        Those two sad streams adown a fearful dell.
        The Latmian listen'd, but he heard no more,
        Save echo, faint repeating o'er and o'er
        The name of Arethusa. On the verge
        Of that dark gulph he wept, and said: "I urge
        Thee, gentle Goddess of my pilgrimage,
        By our eternal hopes, to soothe, to assuage,
        If thou art powerful, these lovers' pains;
        And make them happy in some happy plains."

          He turn'd- there was a whelming sound- he stept,
        There was a cooler light; and so he kept
        Towards it by a sandy path, and lo!
        More suddenly than doth a moment go,
        The visions of the earth were gone and fled-
        He saw the giant sea above his head.
                       BOOK III.

        There are who lord it o'er their fellow-men
        With most prevailing tinsel: who unpen
        Their baaing vanities, to browse away
        The comfortable green and juicy hay
        From human pastures; or, O torturing fact!
        Who, through an idiot blink, will see unpack'd
        Fire-branded foxes to sear up and singe
        Our gold and ripe-ear'd hopes. With not one tinge
        Of sanctuary splendour, not a sight
        Able to face an owl's, they still are dight
        By the blear-eyed nations in empurpled vests,
        And crowns, and turbans. With unladen breasts,
        Save of blown self-applause, they proudly mount
        To their spirit's perch, their being's high account,
        Their tiptop nothings, their dull skies, their thrones-
        Amid the fierce intoxicating tones
        Of trumpets, shoutings, and belabour'd drums,
        And sudden cannon. Ah! how all this hums,
        In wakeful ears, like uproar past and gone-
        Like thunder clouds that spake to Babylon,
        And set those old Chaldeans to their tasks.-
        Are then regalities all gilded masks?
        No, there are throned seats unscalable
        But by a patient wing, a constant spell,
        Or by ethereal things that, unconfin'd,
        Can make a ladder of the eternal wind,
        And poize about in cloudy thunder-tents
        To watch the abysm-birth of elements.
        Aye, 'bove the withering of old-lipp'd Fate
        A thousand Powers keep religious state,
        In water, fiery realm, and airy bourne;
        And, silent as a consecrated urn,
        Hold sphery sessions for a season due.
        Yet few of these far majesties, ah, few!
        Have bared their operations to this globe-
        Few, who with gorgeous pageantry enrobe
        Our piece of heaven- whose benevolence
        Shakes hand with our own Ceres; every sense
        Filling with spiritual sweets to plenitude,
        As bees gorge full their cells. And, by the feud
        'Twixt Nothing and Creation, I here swear,
        Eterne Apollo! that thy Sister fair
        Is of all these the gentlier- mightiest.
        When thy gold breath is misting in the west,
        She unobserved steals unto her throne,
        And there she sits most meek and most alone;
        As if she had not pomp subservient;
        As if thine eye, high Poet! was not bent
        Towards her with the Muses in thine heart;
        As if the ministring stars kept not apart,
        Waiting for silver-footed messages.
        O Moon! the oldest shades 'mong oldest trees
        Feel palpitations when thou lookest in:
        O Moon! old boughs lisp forth a holier din
        The while they feel thine airy fellowship.
        Thou dost bless every where, with silver lip
        Kissing dead things to life. The sleeping kine,
        Couch'd in thy brightness, dream of fields divine:
        Innumerable mountains rise, and rise,
        Ambitious for the hallowing of thine eyes;
        And yet thy benediction passeth not
        One obscure hiding-place, one little spot
        Where pleasure may be sent: the nested wren
        Has thy fair face within its tranquil ken,
        And from beneath a sheltering ivy leaf
        Takes glimpses of thee; thou art a relief
        To the poor patient oyster, where it sleeps
        Within its pearly house.- The mighty deeps,
        The monstrous sea is thine- the myriad sea!
        O Moon! far-spooming Ocean bows to thee,
        And Tellus feels his forehead's cumbrous load.

          Cynthia! where art thou now? What far abode
        Of green or silvery bower doth enshrine
        Such utmost beauty? Alas, thou dost pine
        For one as sorrowful: thy cheek is pale
        For one whose cheek is pale: thou dost bewail
        His tears, who weeps for thee. Where dost thou sigh?
        Ah! surely that light peeps from Vesper's eye,
        Or what a thing is love! 'Tis She, but lo!
        How chang'd, how full of ache, how gone in woe!
        She dies at the thinnest cloud; her loveliness
        Is wan on Neptune's blue: yet there's a stress
        Of love-spangles, just off yon cape of trees,
        Dancing upon the waves, as if to please
        The curly foam with amorous influence.
        O, not so idle: for down-glancing thence
        She fathoms eddies, and runs wild about
        O'erwhelming water-courses; scaring out
        The thorny sharks from hiding-holes, and fright'ning
        Their savage eyes with unaccustom'd lightning.
        Where will the splendour be content to reach?
        O love! how potent hast thou been to teach
        Strange journeyings! Wherever beauty dwells,
        In gulph or aerie, mountains or deep dells,
        In light, in gloom, in star or blazing sun,
        Thou pointest out the way, and straight 'tis won.
        Amid his toil thou gav'st Leander breath;
        Thou leddest Orpheus through the gleams of death;
        Thou madest Pluto bear thin element;
        And now, O winged Chieftain! thou hast sent
        A moon-beam to the deep, deep water-world,
        To find Endymion.

                               On gold sand impearl'd
        With lilly shells, and pebbles milky white,
        Poor Cynthia greeted him, and sooth'd her light
        Against his pallid face: he felt the charm
        To breathlessness, and suddenly a warm
        Of his heart's blood: 'twas very sweet; he stay'd
        His wandering steps, and half-entranced laid
        His head upon a tuft of straggling weeds,
        To taste the gentle moon, and freshening beads,
        Lash'd from the crystal roof by fishes' tails.
        And so he kept, until the rosy veils
        Mantling the east, by Aurora's peering hand
        Were lifted from the water's breast, and fann'd
        Into sweet air; and sober'd morning came
        Meekly through billows:- when like taper-flame
        Left sudden by a dallying breath of air,
        He rose in silence, and once more 'gan fare
        Along his fated way.

                               Far had he roam'd,
        With nothing save the hollow vast, that foam'd,
        Above, around, and at his feet; save things
        More dead than Morpheus' imaginings:
        Old rusted anchors, helmets, breast-plates large
        Of gone sea-warriors; brazen beaks and targe;
        Rudders that for a hundred years had lost
        The sway of human hand; gold vase emboss'd
        With long-forgotten story, and wherein
        No reveller had ever dipp'd a chin
        But those of Saturn's vintage; mouldering scrolls,
        Writ in the tongue of heaven, by those souls
        Who first were on the earth; and sculptures rude
        In ponderous stone, developing the mood
        Of ancient Nox;- then skeletons of man,
        Of beast, behemoth, and leviathan,
        And elephant, and eagle, and huge jaw
        Of nameless monster. A cold leaden awe
        These secrets struck into him; and unless
        Dian had chaced away that heaviness,
        He might have died: but now, with cheered feel,
        He onward kept; wooing these thoughts to steal
        About the labyrinth in his soul of love.

          "What is there in thee, Moon! that thou shouldst move
        My heart so potently? When yet a child
        I oft have dried my tears when thou hast smil'd.
        Thou seem'dst my sister: hand in hand we went
        From eve to morn across the firmament.
        No apples would I gather from the tree,
        Till thou hadst cool'd their cheeks deliciously:
        No tumbling water ever spake romance,
        But when my eyes with thine thereon could dance:
        No woods were green enough, no bower divine,
        Until thou liftedst up thine eyelids fine:
        In sowing time ne'er would I dibble take,
        Or drop a seed, till thou wast wide awake;
        And, in the summer tide of blossoming,
        No one but thee hath heard me blithly sing
        And mesh my dewy flowers all the night.
        No melody was like a passing spright
        If it went not to solemnize thy reign.
        Yes, in my boyhood, every joy and pain
        By thee were fashion'd to the self-same end;
        And as I grew in years, still didst thou blend
        With all my ardours: thou wast the deep glen;
        Thou wast the mountain-top- the sage's pen-
        The poet's harp- the voice of friends- the sun;
        Thou wast the river- thou wast glory won;
        Thou wast my clarion's blast- thou wast my steed-
        My goblet full of wine- my topmost deed:-
        Thou wast the charm of women, lovely Moon!
        O what a wild and harmonized tune
        My spirit struck from all the beautiful!
        On some bright essence could I lean, and lull
        Myself to immortality: I prest
        Nature's soft pillow in a wakeful rest.
        But, gentle Orb! there came a nearer bliss-
        My strange love came- Felicity's abyss!
        She came, and thou didst fade, and fade away-
        Yet not entirely; no, thy starry sway
        Has been an under-passion to this hour.
        Now I begin to feel thine orby power
        Is coming fresh upon me: O be kind,
        Keep back thine influence, and do not blind
        My sovereign vision.- Dearest love, forgive
        That I can think away from thee and live!-
        Pardon me, airy planet, that I prize
        One thought beyond thine argent luxuries!
        How far beyond!" At this a surpris'd start
        Frosted the springing verdure of his heart;
        For as he lifted up his eyes to swear
        How his own goddess was past all things fair,
        He saw far in the concave green of the sea
        An old man sitting calm and peacefully.
        Upon a weeded rock this old man sat,
        And his white hair was awful, and a mat
        Of weeds were cold beneath his cold thin feet;
        And, ample as the largest winding-sheet,
        A cloak of blue wrapp'd up his aged bones,
        O'erwrought with symbols by the deepest groans
        Of ambitious magic: every ocean-form
        Was woven in with black distinctness; storm,
        And calm, and whispering, and hideous roar,
        Quicksand, and whirlpool, and deserted shore,
        Were emblem'd in the woof; with every shape
        That skims, or dives, or sleeps, 'twixt cape and cape.
        The gulphing whale was like a dot in the spell,
        Yet look upon it, and 'twould size and swell
        To its huge self; and the minutest fish
        Would pass the very hardest gazer's wish,
        And show his little eye's anatomy.
        Then there was pictur'd the regality
        Of Neptune; and the sea nymphs round his state,
        In beauteous vassalage, look up and wait.
        Beside this old man lay a pearly wand,
        And in his lap a book, the which he conn'd
        So stedfastly, that the new denizen
        Had time to keep him in amazed ken,
        To mark these shadowings, and stand in awe.

          The old man rais'd his hoary head and saw
        The wilder'd stranger- seeming not to see,
        His features were so lifeless. Suddenly
        He woke as from a trance; his snow-white brows
        Went arching up, and like two magic ploughs
        Furrow'd deep wrinkles in his forehead large,
        Which kept as fixedly as rocky marge,
        Till round his wither'd lips had gone a smile.
        Then up he rose, like one whose tedious toil
        Had watch'd for years in forlorn hermitage,
        Who had not from mid-life to utmost age
        Eas'd in one accent his o'er-burden'd soul,
        Even to the trees. He rose: he grasp'd his stole,
        With convuls'd clenches waving it abroad,
        And in a voice of solemn joy, that aw'd
        Echo into oblivion, he said:-

          "Thou art the man! Now shall I lay my head
        In peace upon my watery pillow: now
        Sleep will come smoothly to my weary brow.
        O Jove! I shall be young again, be young!
        O shell-borne Neptune, I am pierc'd and stung
        With new-born life! What shall I do? Where go,
        When I have cast this serpent-skin of woe?-
        I'll swim to the syrens, and one moment listen
        Their melodies, and see their long hair glisten;
        Anon upon that giant's arm I'll be,
        That writhes about the roots of Sicily:
        To northern seas I'll in a twinkling sail,
        And mount upon the snortings of a whale
        To some black cloud; thence down I'll madly sweep
        On forked lightning, to the deepest deep,
        Where through some sucking pool I will be hurl'd
        With rapture to the other side of the world!
        O, I am full of gladness! Sisters three,
        I bow full hearted to your old decree!
        Yes, every god be thank'd, and power benign,
        For I no more shall wither, droop, and pine.
        Thou art the man!" Endymion started back
        Dismay'd; and, like a wretch from whom the rack
        Tortures hot breath, and speech of agony,
        Mutter'd: "What lonely death am I to die
        In this cold region? Will he let me freeze,
        And float my brittle limbs o'er polar seas?
        Or will he touch me with his searing hand,
        And leave a black memorial on the sand?
        Or tear me piece-meal with a bony saw,
        And keep me as a chosen food to draw
        His magian fish through hated fire and flame?
        O misery of hell! resistless, tame,
        Am I to be burnt up? No, I will shout,
        Until the gods through heaven's blue look out!-
        O Tartarus! but some few days agone
        Her soft arms were entwining me, and on
        Her voice I hung like fruit among green leaves:
        Her lips were all my own, and- ah, ripe sheaves
        Of happiness! ye on the stubble droop,
        But never may be garner'd. I must stoop
        My head, and kiss death's foot. Love! love, farewell!
        Is there no hope from thee? This horrid spell
        Would melt at thy sweet breath.- By Dian's hind
        Feeding from her white fingers, on the wind
        I see thy streaming hair! and now, by Pan,
        I care not for this old mysterious man!"

          He spake, and walking to that aged form,
        Look'd high defiance. Lo! his heart 'gan warm
        With pity, for the grey-hair'd creature wept.
        Had he then wrong'd a heart where sorrow kept?
        Had he, though blindly contumelious, brought
        Rheum to kind eyes, a sting to humane thought,
        Convulsion to a mouth of many years?
        He had in truth; and he was ripe for tears.
        The penitent shower fell, as down he knelt
        Before that care-worn sage, who trembling felt
        About his large dark locks, and faultering spake:

          "Arise, good youth, for sacred Phoebus' sake!
        I know thine inmost bosom, and I feel
        A very brother's yearning for thee steal
        Into mine own: for why? thou openest
        The prison gates that have so long opprest
        My weary watching. Though thou know'st it not,
        Thou art commission'd to this fated spot
        For great enfranchisement. O weep no more;
        I am a friend to love, to loves of yore:
        Aye, hadst thou never lov'd an unknown power,
        I had been grieving at this joyous hour.
        But even now most miserable old,
        I saw thee, and my blood no longer cold
        Gave mighty pulses: in this tottering case
        Grew a new heart, which at this moment plays
        As dancingly as thine. Be not afraid,
        For thou shalt hear this secret all display'd,
        Now as we speed towards our joyous task."

          So saying, this young soul in age's mask
        Went forward with the Carian side by side:
        Resuming quickly thus: while ocean's tide
        Hung swollen at their backs, and jewel'd sands
        Took silently their foot-prints.

                                      "My soul stands
        Now past the midway from mortality,
        And so I can prepare without a sigh
        To tell thee briefly all my joy and pain.
        I was a fisher once, upon this main,
        And my boat danc'd in every creek and bay;
        Rough billows were my home by night and day,-
        The sea-gulls not more constant; for I had
        No housing from the storm and tempests mad,
        But hollow rocks,- and they were palaces
        Of silent happiness, of slumberous ease:
        Long years of misery have told me so.
        Aye, thus it was one thousand years ago.
        One thousand years!- Is it then possible
        To look so plainly through them? to dispel
        A thousand years with backward glance sublime?
        To breathe away as 'twere all scummy slime
        From off a crystal pool, to see its deep,
        And one's own image from the bottom peep?
        Yes: now I am no longer wretched thrall,
        My long captivity and moanings all
        Are but a slime, a thin-pervading scum,
        The which I breathe away, and thronging come
        Like things of yesterday my youthful pleasures.

          "I touch'd no lute, I sang not, trod no measures:
        I was a lonely youth on desert shores.
        My sports were lonely, 'mid continuous roars,
        And craggy isles, and sea-mew's plaintive cry
        Plaining discrepant between sea and sky.
        Dolphins were still my playmates; shapes unseen
        Would let me feel their scales of gold and green,
        Nor be my desolation; and, full oft,
        When a dread waterspout had rear'd aloft
        Its hungry hugeness, seeming ready ripe
        To burst with hoarsest thunderings, and wipe
        My life away like a vast sponge of fate,
        Some friendly monster, pitying my sad state,
        Has dived to its foundations, gulph'd it down,
        And left me tossing safely. But the crown
        Of all my life was utmost quietude:
        More did I love to lie in cavern rude,
        Keeping in wait whole days for Neptune's voice,
        And if it came at last, hark, and rejoice!
        There blush'd no summer eve but I would steer
        My skiff along green shelving coasts, to hear
        The shepherd's pipe come clear from aery steep,
        Mingled with ceaseless bleatings of his sheep:
        And never was a day of summer shine,
        But I beheld its birth upon the brine:
        For I would watch all night to see unfold
        Heaven's gates, and AEthon snort his morning gold
        Wide o'er the swelling streams: and constantly
        At brim of day-tide, on some grassy lea,
        My nets would be spread out, and I at rest.
        The poor folk of the sea-country I blest
        With daily boon of fish most delicate:
        They knew not whence this bounty, and elate
        Would strew sweet flowers on a sterile beach.

          "Why was I not contented? Wherefore reach
        At things which, but for thee, O Latmian!
        Had been my dreary death? Fool! I began
        To feel distemper'd longings: to desire
        The utmost privilege that ocean's sire
        Could grant in benediction: to be free
        Of all his kingdom. Long in misery
        I wasted, ere in one extremest fit
        I plung'd for life or death. To interknit
        One's senses with so dense a breathing stuff
        Might seem a work of pain; so not enough
        Can I admire how crystal-smooth it felt,
        And buoyant round my limbs. At first I dwelt
        Whole days and days in sheer astonishment;
        Forgetful utterly of self-intent;
        Moving bu