| |
| 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. | 5 |
| 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 | 10 |
| 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 | 15 |
| 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 | 20 |
| 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 | 25 |
| 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 | 30 |
| 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. | 35 |
| 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; | 40 |
| 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 | 45 |
| 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, | 50 |
| 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 finished: but let Autumn bold, | 55 |
| 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 | 60 |
| 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 | 65 |
| 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 strayed far a-down those inmost glens, | |
| Never again saw he the happy pens | 70 |
| 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 | 75 |
| By angry wolf, or pard with prying head, | |
| Until it came to some unfooted plains | |
| Where fed the herds of Pan: ay great his gains | |
| Who thus one lamb did lose. Paths there were many, | |
| Winding through palmy fern, and rushes fenny, | 80 |
| 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, | 85 |
| 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 | 90 |
| 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 | 95 |
| 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 | 100 |
| 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, | 105 |
| 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; | 110 |
| Who gathering round the altar, seemed 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 | 115 |
| 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, oer-taking | 120 |
| 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 shewing, till at last | 125 |
| 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: | 130 |
| 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 used to sing. | |
| |
| Leading the way, young damsels danced along, | 135 |
| 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; | 140 |
| Such as sat listening round Apollo’s pipe, | |
| When the great deity, for earth too ripe, | |
| Let his divinity o’er-flowing die | |
| In music, through the vales of Thessaly: | |
| Some idly trailed their sheep-hooks on the ground, | 145 |
| 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 | 150 |
| 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 | 155 |
| Of all sweet herbs that searching eye could cull: | |
| Wild thyme, and valley-lilies 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 | 160 |
| 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, | 165 |
| 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, | |
| Shewing like Ganymede to manhood grown; | 170 |
| 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, | 175 |
| 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 | 180 |
| 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, | 185 |
| 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, | 190 |
| Stood, wan, and pale, and with an awed face, | |
| Among his brothers of the mountain chase. | |
| In midst of all, the venerable priest | |
| Eyed them with joy from greatest to the least, | |
| And, after lifting up his aged hands, | 195 |
| 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; | 200 |
| 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 | 205 |
| 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 | 210 |
| 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 | 215 |
| 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 | 220 |
| 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 | 225 |
| 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 | 230 |
| 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; | 235 |
| 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 | 240 |
| 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, | 245 |
| 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 | 250 |
| 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; | 255 |
| 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, | 260 |
| By every wind that nods the mountain pine, | |
| O forester divine! | |
| |
| “Thou, to whom every fawn and satyr flies | |
| For willing service; whether to surprise | |
| The squatted hare while in half sleeping fit; | 265 |
| 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, | 270 |
| 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 | 275 |
| 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 | 280 |
| A ram goes bleating: Winder of the horn, | |
| When snouted wild-boars routing tender corn | |
| Anger our huntsman: Breather round our farms, | |
| To keep off mildews, and all weather harms: | |
| Strange ministrant of undescribed sounds, | 285 |
| 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, | 290 |
| 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, | 295 |
| 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; | 300 |
| 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, | 305 |
| 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 | 310 |
| 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 | 315 |
| To tunes forgotten—out of memory: | |
| Fair creatures! whose young children’s children bred | |
| Thermopylæ its heroes—not yet dead, | |
| But in old marbles ever beautiful. | |
| High genitors, unconscious did they cull | 320 |
| 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. | 325 |
| 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, | 330 |
| 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, | 335 |
| 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 | 340 |
| 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, | 345 |
| 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, | 350 |
| 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, | 355 |
| 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 | 360 |
| 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 | 365 |
| In ministring the potent rule of fate | |
| With speed of fire-tailed exhalations; | |
| To tint her pallid cheek with bloom, who cons | |
| Sweet poesy by moonlight: besides these, | |
| A world of other unguess’d offices. | 370 |
| 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, | 375 |
| 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: | 380 |
| 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 | 385 |
| 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, | 390 |
| 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 | 395 |
| 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, | 400 |
| 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, | 405 |
| 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 | 410 |
| 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,— | 415 |
| 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, | 420 |
| 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, | 425 |
| 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, | 430 |
| 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. | 435 |
| |
| 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, | 440 |
| 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 | 445 |
| 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 | 450 |
| Down in the blue-bells, or a wren light rustling | |
| Among seer 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 | 455 |
| 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 | 460 |
| 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, | 465 |
| 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, | 470 |
| 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 | 475 |
| 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 | 480 |
| Around the breathed boar: again I’ll poll | |
| The fair-grown yew tree, for a chosen bow: | |
| And, when the pleasant sun is getting low, | |
| Again I’ll linger in a sloping mead | |
| To hear the speckled thrushes, and see feed | 485 |
| 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, | 490 |
| 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; | 495 |
| 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 | 500 |
| 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 | 505 |
| 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 powers? Caught | |
| A Paphian dove upon a message sent? | 510 |
| 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!” | 515 |
| |
| 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 | 520 |
| Wrought suddenly in me. What indeed more strange? | |
| Or more complete to overwhelm surmise? | |
| Ambition is no sluggard: ’tis no prize, | |
| That toiling years would put within my grasp, | |
| That I have sigh’d for: with so deadly gasp | 525 |
| 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, | 530 |
| 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 | 535 |
| 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, | 540 |
| 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, | 545 |
| 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 lighten up the golden reins, | 550 |
| 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: | 555 |
| 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; | 560 |
| 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. | 565 |
| 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, | 570 |
| 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 | 575 |
| 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; | 580 |
| 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, | 585 |
| 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; | 590 |
| 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 | 595 |
| 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 | 600 |
| 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! | 605 |
| 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; | 610 |
| 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, | 615 |
| 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 | 620 |
| 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 | 625 |
| Than those of sea-born Venus, when she rose | |
| From out her cradle shell. The wind out-blows | |
| Her scarf into a fluttering pavilion; | |
| ’Tis blue, and over-spangled with a million | |
| Of little eyes, as though thou wert to shed, | 630 |
| 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, | 635 |
| And press’d me by the hand: Ah! ’twas too much; | |
| Methought I fainted at the charmed touch, | |
| Yet held my recollection, even as one | |
| Who dives three fathoms where the waters run | |
| Gurgling in beds of coral: for anon, | 640 |
| 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, | 645 |
| 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 ay muster where grey time has scoop’d | |
| Huge dens and caverns in a mountain’s side: | 650 |
| 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, | 655 |
| 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. | 660 |
| Ah, desperate mortal! I ev’n 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 | 665 |
| 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, | 670 |
| 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 | 675 |
| 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, | 680 |
| 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, | 685 |
| With leaden looks: the solitary breeze | |
| Bluster’d, and slept, and its wild self did teaze | |
| With wayward melancholy; and r thought, | |
| Mark me, Peona! that sometimes it brought | |
| Faint fare-thee-wells, and sigh-shrilled adieus!— | 690 |
| 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 | 695 |
| 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 | 700 |
| 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, | 705 |
| 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 | 710 |
| 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, | 715 |
| 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, | 720 |
| 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 | 725 |
| 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; | 730 |
| 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 | 735 |
| 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 | 740 |
| 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 tease | 745 |
| 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, | 750 |
| 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 | 755 |
| 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 | 760 |
| 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 | 765 |
| 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, | 770 |
| 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, | 775 |
| 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 | 780 |
| 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 | 785 |
| Eolian 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; | 790 |
| 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 | 795 |
| 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 | 800 |
| 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, | 805 |
| 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, | 810 |
| 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. | 815 |
| 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 | 820 |
| 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: | 825 |
| 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 | 830 |
| 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 | 835 |
| 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, | 840 |
| 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 | 845 |
| 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, | 850 |
| 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, | 855 |
| 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 | 860 |
| 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, | 865 |
| 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, | 870 |
| 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: | 875 |
| ’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; | 880 |
| 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, | 885 |
| 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 | 890 |
| 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, | 895 |
| 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, | 900 |
| 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. | 905 |
| 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 | 910 |
| 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 | 915 |
| 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 | 920 |
| 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, | 925 |
| 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, | 930 |
| 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, | 935 |
| 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 | 940 |
| 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 | 945 |
| 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 | 950 |
| 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 | 955 |
| 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, | 960 |
| 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 | 965 |
| 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 | 970 |
| 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 farewel, sad sigh; | |
| And come instead demurest meditation, | 975 |
| 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 | 980 |
| 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— | 985 |
| 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 | 990 |
| Through autumn mists, and took Peona’s hand: | |
| They stept into the boat, and launch’d from land. | |
| |
| See Notes. |
| |
