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I saw parch'd Abyssinia rouse and sing
To the silver cymbals' ring!

I saw the whelming vintage hotly pierce
Old Tartary the fierce!

The kings of Ind their jewel-sceptres vail,
And from their treasures scatter pearled hail;
Great Brahma from his mystic heaven groans,
And all his priesthood moans,

Before young Bacchus' eye-wink turning pale.
Into these regions came I, following him,
Sick-hearted, weary-so I took a whim
To stray away into these forests drear,
Alone, without a peer:

And I have told thee all thou mayest hear.

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O what a sight she gave in finishing, And look, quite dead to every worldly thing! Endymion could not speak, but gazed on her: And listen'd to the wind that now did stir About the crisped oaks full drearily, Yet with as sweet a sofiness as might be Remember'd from its velvet summer song. At last he said: "Poor lady, how thus long Have I been able to endure that voice? Fair Melody! kind Syren! I've no choice; I must be thy sad servant evermore : I cannot choose but kneel here and adore. Alas, I must not think-by Phoebe, no! Let me not think, soft Angel! shall it be so? Say, beautifullest, shall I never think? O thou couldst foster me beyond the brink Of recollection! make my watchful care Close up its bloodshot eyes, nor see despair! Do gently murder half my soul, and I Shall feel the other half so utterly!— I'm giddy at that cheek so fair and smooth; O let it blush so ever: let it soothe My madness! let it mantle rosy-warm With the tinge of love, panting in safe alarm. This cannot be thy hand, and yet it is; And this is sure thine other softling-this Thine own fair bosom, and I am so near! Wilt fall asleep? O let me sip that tear! And whisper one sweet word that I may know This is the world-sweet dewy blossom!"-WOE!

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Their timid necks and tremble; so these both
Leant to each other trembling, and sat so
Waiting for some destruction-when lo!
Foot-feather'd Mercury appear'd sublime
Beyond the tall tree-tops; and in less time
Than shoots the slanted hail-storm, down he dropt
Towards the ground; but rested not, nor stopt
One moment from his home: only the sward
He with his wand light touch'd, and heavenward
Swifter than sight was gone-even before
The teeming earth a sudden witness bore
Of his swift magic. Diving swans appear
Above the crystal circlings white and clear;
And catch the cheated eye in wild surprise,
How they can dive in sight and unseen rise-
So from the turf outsprang two steeds jet-black,
Each with large dark-blue wings upon his back.
The youth of Caria placed the lovely dame
On one, and felt himself in spleen to tame
The other's fierceness. Through the air they flew,
High as the eagles. Like two drops of dew
Exhaled to Phoebus' lips, away they are gone,
Far from the earth away-unseen, alone,
Among cool clouds and winds, but that the free,
The buoyant life of song can floating be
Above their heads, and follow them untired.
Muse of my native land! am I inspired?
This is the giddy air, and I must spread
Wide pinions to keep here; nor do I dread
Or height, or depth, or width, or any chance
Precipitous: I have beneath my glance
Those towering horses and their mournful freight.
Could I thus sail, and see, and thus await
Fearless for power of thought, without thine aid?-
There is a sleepy dusk, an odorous shade
From some approaching wonder, and behold
Those winged steeds, with snorting nostrils bold
Snuff at its faint extreme, and seem to tire,
Dying to embers from their native fire!

There curl'd a purple mist around them; soon,
It seem'd as when around the pale new moon
Sad Zephyr droops the clouds like weeping willow:
"Twas Sleep slow journeying with head on pillow
For the first time, since he came nigh dead-born
From the old womb of night, his cave forlorn
Had he left more forlorn; for the first time,
He felt aloof the day and morning's prime-
Because into his depth Cimmerian
There came a dream, showing how a young man.
Ere a lean bat could plump its wintery skin,
Would at high Jove's empyreal footstool win
An immortality, and how espouse

Jove's daughter, and be reckon'd of his house.
Now was he slumbering towards heaven's gate,
That he might at the threshold one hour wait
To hear the marriage melodies, and then
Sink downward to his dusky cave again.

His litter of smooth semilucent mist,
Diversely tinged with rose and amethyst,
Puzzled those eyes that for the centre sought;
And scarcely for one moment could be caught
His sluggish form reposing motionless.

Those two on winged steeds, with all the stress
Of vision search'd for him, as one would look
Athwart the sallows of a river nook

To catch a glance at silver-throated eels,-
Or from old Skiddaw's top, when fog conceals
His rugged forehead in a mantle pale,
With an eye-guess towards some pleasant vale,
Descry a favorite hamlet faint and far.

These raven horses, though they foster'd are
Of earth's splenetic fire, dully drop
Their full-vein'd ears, nostrils blood wide, and stop;
Upon the spiritless mist have they outspread
Their ample feathers, are in slumber dead,—
And on those pinions, level in mid-air,
Endymion sleepeth and the lady fair.

Slowly they sail, slowly as icy isle

Upon a calm sea drifting: and meanwhile

Awhile forgetful of all beauty save
Young Phoebe's, golden-hair'd; and so 'gan crave
Forgiveness: yet he turn'd once more to look
At the sweet sleeper,-all his soul was shook,—
She press'd his hand in slumber; so once more
He could not help but kiss her and adore.
At this the shadow wept, melting away.
The Latmian started up: "Bright goddess, stay!
Search my most hidden breast! By truth's own tongue,
have no dædal heart: why is it wrung
To desperation? Is there naught for me,
Upon the bourn of bliss, but misery?"

These words awoke the stranger of dark tresses:
Her dawning love-look rapt Endymion blesses
With 'havior soft. Sleep yawn'd from underneath.
"Thou swan of Ganges, let us no more breathe
This murky phantasm! thou contented seem'st
Pillow'd in lovely idleness, nor dream'st
What horrors may discomfort thee and me.
Ah, shouldst thou die from my heart-treachery!-
Yet did she merely weep-her gentle soul
Hath no revenge in it; as it is whole

The mournful wanderer dreams. Behold! he walks In tenderness, would I were whole in love!

On heaven's pavement; brotherly he talks
To divine powers: from his hand full fain
Juno's proud birds are pecking pearly grain:
He tries the nerve of Phœbus' golden bow,
And asketh where the golden apples grow:
Upon his arm he braces Pallas' shield,
And strives in vain to unsettle and wield
A Jovian thunderbolt: arch Hebe brings
A full-brimm'd goblet, dances lightly, sings
And tantalizes long; at last he drinks,
And lost in pleasure at her feet he sinks,
Touching with dazzled lips her starlight hand,
He blows a bugle,-an ethereal band
Are visible above: the Seasons four,-
Green-kirtled Spring, flush Summer, golden store
In Autumn's sickle, Winter frosty hoar,

Join dance with shadowy Hours; while still the blast,
In swells unmitigated, still doth last

To sway their floating morris. "Whose is this?
Whose bugle?" he inquires: they smile-"O Dis!
Why is this mortal here? Dost thou not know
Its mistress' lips? Not thou?-"Tis Dian's: lo!
She rises crescented!" He looks, 'tis she,
His very goddess: good-bye earth, and sea,
And air, and pains, and care, and suffering;
Good-bye to all but love! Then doth he spring
Towards her, and awakes-and, strange, o'erhead,
Of those same fragrant exhalations bred,
Beheld awake his very dream: the Gods
Stood smiling; merry Hebe laughs and nods;
And Phoebe bends towards him crescented.
O state perplexing! On the pinion bed,
Too well awake, he feels the panting side
Of his delicious lady. He who died
For soaring too audacious in the sun,
Where that same treacherous wax began to run,
Felt not more tongue-tied than Endymion.
His heart leapt up as to its rightful throne,
To that fair-shadow'd passion pulsed its way-
Ah, what perplexity! Ah, well-a-day!
So fond, so beauteous was his bed-fellow,
He could not help but kiss her: then he grew
3 V

Can I prize thee, fair maid, all price above,
Even when I feel as true as innocence?

I do, I do.-What is this soul then? Whence
Came it? It does not seem my own, and I
Have no self-passion or identity.

Some fearful end must be; where, where is it?
By Nemesis! I see my spirit flit

Alone about the dark-Forgive me, sweet!

Shall we away?" He roused the steeds; they beat
Their wings chivalrous into the clear air,
Leaving old Sleep within his vapory lair.

The good-night blush of eve was waning slow,
And Vesper, risen star, began to throe
Thus sprang direct towards the Galaxy.
In the dusk heavens silvery, when they
Nor did speed hinder converse soft and strange-
Eternal oaths and vows they interchange,
In such wise, in such temper, so aloof
Up in the winds, beneath a starry roof,
So witless of their doom, that verily

"Tis well-nigh past man's search their hearts to see;
Whether they wept, or laugh'd, or grieved, or toy'd-
Most like with joy gone mad, with sorrow cloy'd.

Full facing their swift flight, from ebon streak
The moon put forth a little diamond peak,
No bigger than an unobserved star,
Or tiny point of fairy scimitar;
Bright signal that she only stoop'd to tie
Her silver sandals, ere deliciously

She bow'd into the heavens her timid head.
Slowly she rose, as though she would have fled
While to his lady meek the Carian turn'd,
To mark if her dark eyes had yet discern'd
This beauty in its birth-Despair! despair!
He saw her body fading gaunt and spare
In the cold moonshine. Straight he seized her wrist;
It melted from his grasp; her hand he kiss'd,
And, horror! kiss'd his own-he was alone.

Her steed a little higher soar'd, and then Dropt hawkwise to the earth.

There lies a den,

Beyond the seeming confines of the space
Made for the soul to wander in and trace
Its own existence, of remotest glooms.
Dark regions are around it, where the tombs
Of buried griefs the spirit sees, but scarce
One hour doth linger weeping, for the pierce
Of new-born woe it feels more inly smart :
And in these regions many a venom'd dart
At random flies; they are the proper home
Of every ill the man is yet to come

:

Who hath not journey'd in this native hell.
But few have ever felt how calm and well
Sleep may be had in that deep den of all.
There anguish does not sting, nor pleasure pall;
Woe-hurricanes beat ever at the gate,
Yet all is still within and desolate.
Beset with plainful gusts, within ye hear
No sound so loud as when on curtain'd bier
The death-watch tick is stifled. Enter none
Who strive therefor: on the sudden it is won.
Just when the sufferer begins to burn,
Then it is free to him; and from an urn,
Still fed by melting ice, he takes a draught—
Young Semele such richness never quaft
In her maternal longing. Happy gloom!
Dark Paradise! where pale becomes the bloom
Of health by due; where silence dreariest
Is most articulate; where hopes infest;
Where those eyes are the brightest far that keep
Their lids shut longest in a dreamless sleep.
O happy spirit-home! O wondrous soul!
Pregnant with such a den to save the whole
In thine own depth. Hail, gentle Carian!
For, never since thy griefs and woes began,
Hast thou felt so content: a grievous feud
Hath led thee to this Cave of Quietude,
Aye, his lull'd soul was there, although upborne
With dangerous speed: and so he did not mourn
Because he knew not whither he was going.
So happy was he, not the aerial blowing
Of trumpets at clear parley from the east
Could rouse from that fine relish, that high feast.
They stung the feather'd horse; with fierce alarm
He flapp'd towards the sound. Alas! no charm
Could lift Endymion's head, or he had view'd
A skyey mask, a pinion'd multitude,-
And silvery was its passing: voices sweet
Warbling the while as if to lull and greet
The wanderer in his path. Thus warbled they,
While past the vision went in bright array.

"Who, who from Dian's feast would be away? For all the golden bowers of the day Are empty left? Who, who away would be From Cynthia's wedding and festivity? Not Hesperus lo! upon his silver wings He leans away for highest heaven and sings, Snapping his lucid fingers merrily!Ah, Zephyrus! art here, and Flora too! Ye tender bibbers of the rain and dew, Young playmates of the rose and daffodil, Be careful, ere ye enter in, to fill

Your baskets high

With fennel green, and balm, and golden pines,
Savory, latter-mint, and columbines,
Cool parsley, basil sweet, and sunny thyme;
Yea, every flower and leaf of every clime,
All gather'd in the dewy morning: hie

Away! fly, fly!—

Crystalline brother of the belt of heaven,
Aquarius! to whom king Jove has given
Two liquid pulse streams 'stead of feather'd wings,
Two fan-like fountains,-thine illuminings
For Dian play:

Dissolve the frozen purity of air;

Let thy white shoulders silvery and bare
Show cold through watery pinions; make more bright
The Star-Queen's crescent on her marriage night:
Haste, haste away!

Castor has tamed the planet Lion, see!
And of the Bear has Pollux mastery:
A third is in the race! who is the third,
Speeding away swift as the eagle bird?

The ramping Centaur!

The Lion's mane's on end: the Bear how fierce!
The Centaur's arrow ready seems to pierce
Some enemy: far forth his bow is bent

Into the blue of heaven. He'll be shent,

Pale unrelentor,

When he shall hear the wedding lutes a-playing-
Andromeda sweet woman! why delaying

So timidly among the stars? come hither!
Join this bright throng, and nimbly follow whither
They all are going.

Dana's Son, before Jove newly bow'd,
Has wept for thee, calling to Jove aloud.
Thee, gentle lady, did he disenthral :
Ye shall for ever live and love, for all
Thy tears are flowing.-

By Daphne's fright, behold Apollo!—"

More

Endymion heard not: down his steed him bore, Prone to the green head of a misty hill.

His first touch of the earth went nigh to kill.
"Alas!" said he, "were I but always borne
Through dangerous winds, had but my footsteps worn
A path in hell, for ever would I bless
Horrors which nourish an uneasiness
For my own sullen conquering; to him

Who lives beyond earth's boundary, grief is dim,
Sorrow is but a shadow: now I see

The grass; I feel the solid ground—Ah, me!
It is thy voice-divinest! Where?-who? who
Left thee so quiet on this bed of dew?
Behold upon this happy earth we are;
Let us aye love each other; let us fare
On forest-fruits, and never, never go
Among the abodes of mortals here below,
Or be by phantoms duped. O destiny!
Into a labyrinth now my soul would fly,
But with thy beauty will I deaden it.
Where didst thou melt too? By thee will I sit
For ever: let our fate stop here-a kid
I on this spot will offer: Pan will bid
Us live in peace, in love and peace among
His forest wildernesses. I have clung

To nothing, loved a nothing, nothing seen Or felt but a great dream! Oh, I have been Presumptuous against love, against the sky, Against all elements, against the tie

Of mortals each to each, against the blooms
Of flowers, rush of rivers, and the tombs
Of heroes gone! Against his proper glory
Has my own soul conspired: so my story
Will I to children utter, and repent.
There never lived a mortal man, who bent
His appetite beyond his natural sphere,
But starved and died. My sweetest Indian, here,
Here will I kneel, for thou redeemed hast

My life from too thin breathing: gone and past
Are cloudy phantasms. Caverns lone, farewell!
And air of visions, and the monstrous swell
Of visionary seas! No, never more
Shall airy voices cheat me to the shore
Of tangled wonder, breathless and aghast.
Adieu, my daintiest Dream! although so vast
My love is still for thee. The hour may come
When we shall meet in pure elysium.

On earth I may not love thee; and therefore
Doves will I offer up, and sweetest store
All through the teeming year: so thou wilt shine,
On me, and on this damsel fair of mine,
And bless our simple lives. My Indian bliss!
My river-lily bud! one human kiss!
One sigh of real breath-one gentle squeeze,
Warm as a dove's nest among summer trees,
And warm with dews that ooze from living blood!
Whither didst melt? Ah, what of that?-all good
We'll talk about-no more of dreaming.-Now,
Where shall our dwelling be? Under the brow
Of some steep mossy hill, where ivy dun

Would hide us up, although spring leaves were none;
And where dark yew-trees, as we rustle through,
Will drop their scarlet-berry cups of dew?
O thou wouldst joy to live in such a place!
Dusk for our loves, yet light enough to grace
Those gentle limbs on mossy bed reclined:
For by one step the blue sky shouldst thou find,
And by another, in deep dell below,
See, through the trees, a little river go
All in its mid-day gold and glimmering.
Honey from out the gnarled hive I'll bring,
And apples, wan with sweetness, gather thee,-
Cresses that grow where no man may them see,
And sorrel untorn by the dew-claw'd stag:
Pipes will I fashion of the syrinx flag,
That thou mayst always know whither I roam,
When it shall please thee in our quiet home
To listen and think of love. Still let me speak;
Still let me dive into the joy I seek,-
For yet the past doth prison me. The rill,
Thou haply mayst delight in, will I fill
With fairy fishes from the mountain tarn,

And thou shalt feed them from the squirrel's barn.
Its bottom will I strew with amber shells,
And pebbles blue from deep enchanted wells.
Its sides I'll plant with dew-sweet eglantine,
And honeysuckles full of clear bee-wine.
I will entice this crystal rill to trace
Love's silver name upon the meadow's face.
I'll kneel to Vesta, for a flame of fire;
And to god Phoebus, for a golden lyre;
To Empress Dian, for a hunting-spear;
To Vesper, for a taper silver-clear,

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Thus strove by fancies vain and crude to clear
His brier'd path to some tranquillity.
It gave bright gladness to his lady's eye,
And yet the tears she wept were tears of sorrow;
Answering thus, just as the golden morrow
Beam'd upward from the valleys of the east:
"O that the flutter of this heart had ceased,
Or the sweet name of love had pass'd away!
Young feather'd tyrant! by a swift decay
Wilt thou devote this body to the earth:
And I do think that at my very birth
I lisp'd thy blooming titles inwardly;
For at the first, first dawn and thought of thee,
With uplift hands I blest the stars of heaven.
Art thou not cruel? Ever have I striver
To think thee kind, but ah, it will not do!
When yet a child, I heard that kisses drew
Favor from thee, and so I kisses gave
To the void air, bidding them find out love:
But when I came to feel how far above
All fancy, pride, and fickle maidenhood.
All earthly pleasure, all imagined good,
Was the warm tremble of a devout kiss,
Even then, that moment, at the thought of this,
Fainting I fell into a bed of flowers,
And languish'd there three days. Ye milder powers
Am I not cruelly wrong'd? Believe, believe
Me, dear Endymion, were I to weave
With my own fancies garlands of sweet life,
Thou shouldst be one of all. Ah, bitter strife!

I

may not be thy love: I am forbidden

Indeed I am-thwarted, affrighted, chidden

By things I trembled at, and gorgon wrath.

Twice hast thou ask'd whither I went: henceforth
Ask me no more! I may not utter it,

Nor may I be thy love. We might commit
Ourselves at once to vengeance; we might die,
We might embrace and die: voluptuous thought
Enlarge not to my hunger, or I'm caught
In trammels of perverse deliciousness.
No, no, that shall not be: thee will I bless,
And bid a long adieu."

The Carian

No word return'd both lovelorn, silent, wan,

Into the valleys green together went.

Far wandering they were perforce content
To sit beneath a fair, lone beechen tree;
Nor at each other gazed, but heavily
Pored on its hazel cirque of shedded leaves.

Endymion! unhappy! it nigh grieves Me to behold thee thus in last extreme: Enskied ere this, but truly that I deem Truth the best music in a first-born song. Thy lute-voiced brother will I sing ere long, And thou shalt aid-hast thou not aided me? Yes, moonlight Emperor! felicity

Has been thy meed for many thousand years; Yet often have I, on the brink of tears, Mourn'd as if yet thou wert a forester ;Forgetting the old tale.

He did not stir

His eyes from the dead leaves, or one small pulse
Of joy he might have felt. The spirit culls
Unfaded amaranth, when wild it strays
Through the old garden-ground of boyish days.
A little onward ran the very stream
By which he took his first soft poppy dream;
And on the very bark 'gainst which he leant
A crescent he had carved, and round it spent
His skill in little stars. The teeming tree
Had swoll'n and green'd the pious charactery,
But not ta'en out. Why, there was not a slope
Up which he had not fear'd the antelope;
And not a tree, beneath whose rooty shade
He had not with his tamed leopards play'd;
Nor could an arrow light, or javelin,
Fly in the air where his had never been-
And yet he knew it not.

O treachery!

Why does his lady smile, pleasing her eye
With all his sorrowing? He sees her not.
But who so stares on him? His sister, sure!
Peona of the woods! Can she endure-
Impossible-how dearly they embrace!
His lady smiles; delight is in her face;
It is no treachery.

"Dear brother mine! Endymion, weep not so! Why shouldst thou pine When all great Latmos so exalt will be? Thank the great gods, and look not bitterly; And speak not one pale word, and sigh no more. Sure I will not believe thou hast such store Of grief, to last thee to my kiss again. Thou surely canst not bear a mind in pain, Come hand in hand with one so beautiful. Be happy both of you! for I will pull The flowers of autumn for your coronals. Pan's holy priest for young Endymion calls; And when he is restored, thou, fairest dame, Shalt be our queen. Now, is it not a shame To see ye thus,-not very, very sad? Perhaps ye are too happy to be glad : O feel as if it were a common day; Free-voiced as one who never was away.

No tongue shall ask, whence come ye? but ye shali

Be gods of your own rest imperial.

Not even I, for one whole month, will pry
Into the hours that have pass'd us by,
Since in my arbor I did sing to thee.
O Hermes! on this very night will be
A hymning up to Cynthia, queen of light;
For the soothsayers old saw yesternight
Good visions in the air,-whence will befall,
As say these sages, health perpetual

To shepherds and their flocks; and furthermore,
In Dian's face they read the gentle lore:
Therefore for her these vesper-carols are.
Our friends will all be there from nigh and far.
Many upon thy death have ditties made;
And many, even now, their foreheads shade
With cypress, on a day of sacrifice.
New singing for our maids shalt thou devise,
And pluck the sorrow from our huntsmen's brows.
Tell me, my lady-queen, how to espouse
This wayward brother to his rightful joys!
His eyes are on thee bent, as thou didst poise
His fate most goddess-like. Help me, I pray,
To lure-Endymion, dear brother, say

What ails thee?" He could bear no more, and so
Bent his soul fiercely like a spiritual bow,
And twang'd it inwardly, and calmly said:

"I would have thee my only friend, sweet maid!
My only visitor! not ignorant though,
That those deceptions which for pleasure go
'Mong men, are pleasures real as real may be:
But there are higher ones I may not see,
If impiously an earthly realm I take.
Since I saw thee, I have been wide awake
Night after night, and day by day, until
Of the empyrean I have drunk my fill.
Let it content thee, Sister, seeing me
More happy than betides mortality.
A hermit young, I'll live in mossy cave,
Where thou alone shalt come to me, and lave
Thy spirit in the wonders I shall tell.
Through me the shepherd realm shall prosper well,
For to thy tongue will I all health confide.
And, for my sake, let this young maid abide
With thee as a dear sister.

Thou alone,

Peona, mayst return to me. I own

This may sound strangely: but when, dearest girl,
Thou seest it for my happiness, no pearl

Will trespass down those cheeks. Companion fair!
Wilt be content to dwell with her, to share
This sister's love with me?" Like one resign'd
And bent by circumstances, and thereby blind
In self-commitment, thus that meek unknown:

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Ay, but a buzzing by my ears has flown,

Of jubilee to Dian:-truth I heard!

Well then, I see there is no little bird,
Tender soever, but is Jove's own care.
Long have I sought for rest, and, unaware,
Behold I find it! so exalted too!
So after my own heart! I knew, I knew
There was a place untenanted in it;
In that same void white Chastity shall sit,
And monitor me nightly to lone slumber.
With sanest lips I vow me to the number
Of Dian's sisterhood; and, kind lady,
With thy good help, this very night shall see

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