His aged head, crown'd 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-follow'd by a multitude that rear'd Their voices to the clouds, a fair wrought car Easily rolling so as scarce to mar
The freedom of three steeds of dapple brown: Who stood therein did seem of great renown Among the throng. His youth was fully blown, Showing like Ganymede to manhood grown; And, for those simple times, his garments were A chieftain king's: beneath his breast, half bare, Was hung a silver bugle, and between
His nervy knees there lay a boar-spear keen. A smile was on his countenance; he seem'd, To common lookers-on, like one who dream'd Of idleness in groves Elysian :
But there were some who feelingly could scan A lurking trouble in his nether lip,
And see that oftentimes the reins would slip
Anon he stain'd the thick and spongy sod With wine, in honor 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 grayly 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 lovest 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!
Through his forgotten hands: then would they sigh, By all the trembling mazes that she ran,
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 ranged,
"O thou, for whose soul-soothing quiet, turtles Passion their voices cooingly 'mong myrtles,
Stood silent round the shrine: each look was changed What time thou wanderest at eventide
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 valleys where the pipe is never dumb; Or from your swelling downs, where sweet air stirs Blue harebells 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 favor'd 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;
Through sunny meadows, that outskirt the side Of thine enmossed realms: O thou, to whom Broad-leaved fig-trees even now foredoom Their ripen'd fruitage; yellow-girted bees Their golden honeycombs; our village leas Their fairest blossom'd beans and poppied corn; The chuckling linnet its five young unborn, To sing for thee; low creeping strawberries Their summer coolness; pent up butterflies Their freckled wings; yea, the fresh budding year All its completions-be quickly near,
By every wind that nods the mountain pine, O forester divine!
"Thou, to whom every faun and satyr flies For willing service; whether to surprise The squatted hare while in half-sleeping fit; Or upward ragged precipices flit
To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw; Or by mysterious enticement draw Bewilder'd 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 bourn 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
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 Pæan, Upon thy Mount Lycean!"
Even while they brought the burden to a close, A shout from the whole multitude arose, That linger'd 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:
Until, from the horizon's vaulted side, There shot a golden splendor far and wide, Spangling those million poutings of the brine With quivering ore: 't was 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 increased The silvery setting of their mortal star. There they discoursed 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 ministering the potent rule of fate With speed of fire-tail'd exhalations;
To tint her pallid cheek with bloom, who cons Sweet poesy by moonlight: besides these, A world of other unguess'd offices. Anon they wander'd, by divine converse, Into Elysium; vying 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 ;
Fair creatures! whose young childrens' children bred And, ever after, through those regions be
Thermopyla its heroes-not yet dead, But in old marbles ever beautiful.
High genitors, unconscious did they cull
His messenger, his little Mercury.
Some were athirst in soul to see again
Their fellow-huntsmen o'er the wide champaign
Time's sweet first-fruits-they danced to weariness,In times long past; to sit with them, and talk
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 envelop
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 shared 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 caris, or close of trembling palms, Or maiden's sigh, that grief itself embalms:
Those who would watch. Perhaps, the trembling knee But in the self-same fixed trance he kept,
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. Aroused 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,
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 breathed 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 arbor, 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 favorite bower's quiet shade, On her own couch, new made of flower leaves, Dried carefully on the cooler side of sheaves When last the sun his autumn tresses shook, And the tann'd harvesters rich armfuls took. Soon was he quieted to slumbrous rest: But, ere it crept upon him, he had prest Peona's busy hand against his lips, And still, a-sleeping, held her finger-tips In tender pressure. And as a willow keeps A patient watch over the stream that creeps Windingly by it, so the quiet maid Held her in peace: so that a whispering blade Of grass, a wailful gnat, a bee bustling
Down in the blue-bells, or a wren light rustling Among sere leaves and twigs, might all be heard.
O magic sleep! O comfortable bird,
That broodest o'er the troubled sea of the mind Till it is hush'd and smooth! O unconfined Restraint! imprison'd liberty! great key To golden palaces, strange minstrelsy, Fountains grotesque, new trees, bespangled caves, Echoing grottoes, full of tumbling waves And moonlight; aye, to all the 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 entreat 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 chase-
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 wonder'd 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 colors, wings, and bursts of spangly light; The which became more strange, and strange, dim,
And then were gulf'd in a tumultuous swim: And then I fell asleep. Ah, can I tell The enchantment that afterwards befell? 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 splendor 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 vapory tent- Whereat, methought, the lidless-eyed train Of planets all were in the blue again.
To commune with those orbs, once more I raised 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,
Speak, stubborn earth, and tell me where, O where Hast thou a symbol of her golden hair? Nor 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 neighborhood 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 bluebell 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 And press'd me by the hand: Ah! 'twas too much Methought I fainted at the charmed touch,
Who from Olympus watch our destinies! Whence that completed form of all completeness?
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 aye muster where gray time has scoop'd Huge dens and caverns in a mountain's side: There hollow sounds aroused him, 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 't was 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 dared 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. 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'erpower'd me
Whence came that high perfection of all sweetness? 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 tease With wayward melancholy; and I thought, Mark me, Peona! that sometimes it brought Faint fare-thee-wells, and sigh-shrilled adieus!— Away I wander'd-all the pleasant hues
Of heaven and earth had faded: deepest shades Were deepest dungeons; heaths and sunny glades Were full of pestilent light; our taintless rills Seem'd sooty, and o'er-spread with upturn'd gills Of dying fish; the vermeil rose had blown In frightful scarlet, and its thorns out-grown Like spiked aloe. If an innocent bird Before my heedless footsteps stirr'd, and stirr'd In little journeys, I beheld in it
A disguised demon, missioned to knit My soul with under darkness; to entice My stumblings down some monstrous precipice: Therefore I eager follow'd, 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 Pictured 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, that 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
Than the mere nothing that engenders them! Then wherefore sully the intrusted gem Of high and noble life with thoughts so sick? Why pierce high-fronted honor 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 Widen'd 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 color grew Upon his cheek, while thus he lifeful spake.
"Poena! 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 prepared- Though now 'tis tatter'd; leaving my bark bared 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 alchemized, 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.
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