John Keats

Endymion. Book 1

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 finished: 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 strayed 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: ay 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, 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	        
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	        
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	        
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 used 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’er-flowing die	
In music, through the vales of Thessaly:	
Some idly trailed 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-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	        
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,	
Shewing 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 chase.	
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 fawn 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 huntsman: 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	
Thermopylæ 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-tailed 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 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	        
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 getting 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 powers? 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 no sluggard: ’tis no prize,	
That toiling years would put within my grasp,	
That I have sigh’d 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 lighten 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 pavilion;	
’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 recollection, 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 ay 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 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	        
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 r 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 tease	        
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	        
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;	        
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 farewel, 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.