Endymion   
   
Book III   
   
   
There are who lord it o’er their fellow-men      
With most prevailing tinsel: who unpen      
Their baaing vanities, to browse away      
The comfortable green and juicy hay      
From human pastures; or, O torturing fact!           5   
Who, through an idiot blink, will see unpack’d      
Fire-branded foxes to sear up and singe      
Our gold and ripe-ear’d hopes. With not one tinge      
Of sanctuary splendour, not a sight      
Able to face an owl’s, they still are dight           10   
By the blear-eyed nations in empurpled vests,      
And crowns, and turbans. With unladen breasts,      
Save of blown self-applause, they proudly mount      
To their spirit’s perch, their being’s high account,      
Their tiptop nothings, their dull skies, their thrones—           15   
Amid the fierce intoxicating tones      
Of trumpets, shoutings, and belabour’d drums,      
And sudden cannon. Ah! how all this hums,      
In wakeful ears, like uproar past and gone—      
Like thunder clouds that spake to Babylon,           20   
And set those old Chaldeans to their tasks.—      
Are then regalities all gilded masks?      
No, there are throned seats unscalable      
But by a patient wing, a constant spell,      
Or by ethereal things that, unconfin’d,           25   
Can make a ladder of the eternal wind,      
And poise about in cloudy thunder-tents      
To watch the abysm-birth of elements.      
Aye, ’bove the withering of old-lipp’d Fate      
A thousand Powers keep religious state,           30   
In water, fiery realm, and airy bourne;      
And, silent as a consecrated urn,      
Hold sphery sessions for a season due.      
Yet few of these far majesties, ah, few!      
Have bared their operations to this globe—           35   
Few, who with gorgeous pageantry enrobe      
Our piece of heaven—whose benevolence      
Shakes hand with our own Ceres; every sense      
Filling with spiritual sweets to plenitude,      
As bees gorge full their cells. And, by the feud           40   
’Twixt Nothing and Creation, I here swear,      
Eterne Apollo! that thy Sister fair      
Is of all these the gentlier-mightiest.      
When thy gold breath is misting in the west,      
She unobserved steals unto her throne,           45   
And there she sits most meek and most alone;      
As if she had not pomp subservient;      
As if thine eye, high Poet! was not bent      
Towards her with the Muses in thine heart;      
As if the ministring stars kept not apart,           50   
Waiting for silver-footed messages.      
O Moon! the oldest shades ’mong oldest trees      
Feel palpitations when thou lookest in:      
O Moon! old boughs lisp forth a holier din      
The while they feel thine airy fellowship.           55   
Thou dost bless every where, with silver lip      
Kissing dead things to life. The sleeping kine,      
Couched in thy brightness, dream of fields divine:      
Innumerable mountains rise, and rise,      
Ambitious for the hallowing of thine eyes;           60   
And yet thy benediction passeth not      
One obscure hiding-place, one little spot      
Where pleasure may be sent: the nested wren      
Has thy fair face within its tranquil ken,      
And from beneath a sheltering ivy leaf           65   
Takes glimpses of thee; thou art a relief      
To the poor patient oyster, where it sleeps      
Within its pearly house.—The mighty deeps,      
The monstrous sea is thine—the myriad sea!      
O Moon! far-spooming Ocean bows to thee,           70   
And Tellus feels his forehead’s cumbrous load.      
   
  Cynthia! where art thou now? What far abode      
Of green or silvery bower doth enshrine      
Such utmost beauty? Alas, thou dost pine      
For one as sorrowful: thy cheek is pale           75   
For one whose cheek is pale: thou dost bewail      
His tears, who weeps for thee. Where dost thou sigh?      
Ah! surely that light peeps from Vesper’s eye,      
Or what a thing is love! ’Tis She, but lo!      
How chang’d, how full of ache, how gone in woe!           80   
She dies at the thinnest cloud; her loveliness      
Is wan on Neptune’s blue: yet there’s a stress      
Of love-spangles, just off yon cape of trees,      
Dancing upon the waves, as if to please      
The curly foam with amorous influence.           85   
O, not so idle: for down-glancing thence      
She fathoms eddies, and runs wild about      
O’erwhelming water-courses; scaring out      
The thorny sharks from hiding-holes, and fright’ning      
Their savage eyes with unaccustomed lightning.           90   
Where will the splendor be content to reach?      
O love! how potent hast thou been to teach      
Strange journeyings! Wherever beauty dwells,      
In gulf or aerie, mountains or deep dells,      
In light, in gloom, in star or blazing sun,           95   
Thou pointest out the way, and straight ’tis won.      
Amid his toil thou gav’st Leander breath;      
Thou leddest Orpheus through the gleams of death;      
Thou madest Pluto bear thin element;      
And now, O winged Chieftain! thou hast sent           100   
A moon-beam to the deep, deep water-world,      
To find Endymion.

                  On gold sand impearl’d      
With lily shells, and pebbles milky white,      
Poor Cynthia greeted him, and sooth’d her light      
Against his pallid face: he felt the charm           105   
To breathlessness, and suddenly a warm      
Of his heart’s blood: ’twas very sweet; he stay’d      
His wandering steps, and half-entranced laid      
His head upon a tuft of straggling weeds,      
To taste the gentle moon, and freshening beads,           110   
Lashed from the crystal roof by fishes’ tails.      
And so he kept, until the rosy veils      
Mantling the east, by Aurora’s peering hand      
Were lifted from the water’s breast, and fann’d      
Into sweet air; and sober’d morning came           115   
Meekly through billows:—when like taper-flame      
Left sudden by a dallying breath of air,      
He rose in silence, and once more ’gan fare      
Along his fated way.

                      Far had he roam’d,      
With nothing save the hollow vast, that foam’d           120   
Above, around, and at his feet; save things      
More dead than Morpheus’ imaginings:      
Old rusted anchors, helmets, breast-plates large      
Of gone sea-warriors; brazen beaks and targe;      
Rudders that for a hundred years had lost           125   
The sway of human hand; gold vase emboss’d      
With long-forgotten story, and wherein      
No reveller had ever dipp’d a chin      
But those of Saturn’s vintage; mouldering scrolls,      
Writ in the tongue of heaven, by those souls           130   
Who first were on the earth; and sculptures rude      
In ponderous stone, developing the mood      
Of ancient Nox;—then skeletons of man,      
Of beast, behemoth, and leviathan,      
And elephant, and eagle, and huge jaw           135   
Of nameless monster. A cold leaden awe      
These secrets struck into him; and unless      
Dian had chaced away that heaviness,      
He might have died: but now, with cheered feel,      
He onward kept; wooing these thoughts to steal           140   
About the labyrinth in his soul of love.      
   
  “What is there in thee, Moon! that thou shouldst move      
My heart so potently? When yet a child      
I oft have dried my tears when thou hast smil’d.      
Thou seem’dst my sister: hand in hand we went           145   
From eve to morn across the firmament.      
No apples would I gather from the tree,      
Till thou hadst cool’d their cheeks deliciously:      
No tumbling water ever spake romance,      
But when my eyes with thine thereon could dance:           150   
No woods were green enough, no bower divine,      
Until thou liftedst up thine eyelids fine:      
In sowing time ne’er would I dibble take,      
Or drop a seed, till thou wast wide awake;      
And, in the summer tide of blossoming,           155   
No one but thee hath heard me blithly sing      
And mesh my dewy flowers all the night.      
No melody was like a passing spright      
If it went not to solemnize thy reign.      
Yes, in my boyhood, every joy and pain           160   
By thee were fashion’d to the self-same end;      
And as I grew in years, still didst thou blend      
With all my ardours: thou wast the deep glen;      
Thou wast the mountain-top—the sage’s pen—      
The poet’s harp—the voice of friends—the sun;           165   
Thou wast the river—thou wast glory won;      
Thou wast my clarion’s blast—thou wast my steed—      
My goblet full of wine—my topmost deed:—      
Thou wast the charm of women, lovely Moon!      
O what a wild and harmonized tune           170   
My spirit struck from all the beautiful!      
On some bright essence could I lean, and lull      
Myself to immortality: I prest      
Nature’s soft pillow in a wakeful rest.      
But, gentle Orb! there came a nearer bliss—           175   
My strange love came—Felicity’s abyss!      
She came, and thou didst fade, and fade away—      
Yet not entirely; no, thy starry sway      
Has been an under-passion to this hour.      
Now I begin to feel thine orby power           180   
Is coming fresh upon me: O be kind,      
Keep back thine influence, and do not blind      
My sovereign vision.—Dearest love, forgive      
That I can think away from thee and live!—      
Pardon me, airy planet, that I prize           185   
One thought beyond thine argent luxuries!      
How far beyond!” At this a surpris’d start      
Frosted the springing verdure of his heart;      
For as he lifted up his eyes to swear      
How his own goddess was past all things fair,           190   
He saw far in the concave green of the sea      
An old man sitting calm and peacefully.      
Upon a weeded rock this old man sat,      
And his white hair was awful, and a mat      
Of weeds were cold beneath his cold thin feet;           195   
And, ample as the largest winding-sheet,      
A cloak of blue wrapp’d up his aged bones,      
O’erwrought with symbols by the deepest groans      
Of ambitious magic: every ocean-form      
Was woven in with black distinctness; storm,           200   
And calm, and whispering, and hideous roar      
Were emblem’d in the woof; with every shape      
That skims, or dives, or sleeps, ’twixt cape and cape.      
The gulphing whale was like a dot in the spell,      
Yet look upon it, and ’twould size and swell           205   
To its huge self; and the minutest fish      
Would pass the very hardest gazer’s wish,      
And show his little eye’s anatomy.      
Then there was pictur’d the regality      
Of Neptune; and the sea nymphs round his state,           210   
In beauteous vassalage, look up and wait.      
Beside this old man lay a pearly wand,      
And in his lap a book, the which he conn’d      
So stedfastly, that the new denizen      
Had time to keep him in amazed ken,           215   
To mark these shadowings, and stand in awe.      
   
  The old man rais’d his hoary head and saw      
The wilder’d stranger—seeming not to see,      
His features were so lifeless. Suddenly      
He woke as from a trance; his snow-white brows           220   
Went arching up, and like two magic ploughs      
Furrow’d deep wrinkles in his forehead large,      
Which kept as fixedly as rocky marge,      
Till round his wither’d lips had gone a smile.      
Then up he rose, like one whose tedious toil           225   
Had watch’d for years in forlorn hermitage,      
Who had not from mid-life to utmost age      
Eas’d in one accent his o’er-burden’d soul,      
Even to the trees. He rose: he grasp’d his stole,      
With convuls’d clenches waving it abroad,           230   
And in a voice of solemn joy, that aw’d      
Echo into oblivion, he said:—      
   
  “Thou art the man! Now shall I lay my head      
In peace upon my watery pillow: now      
Sleep will come smoothly to my weary brow.           235   
O Jove! I shall be young again, be young!      
O shell-borne Neptune, I am pierc’d and stung      
With new-born life! What shall I do? Where go,      
When I have cast this serpent-skin of woe?—      
I’ll swim to the syrens, and one moment listen           240   
Their melodies, and see their long hair glisten;      
Anon upon that giant’s arm I’ll be,      
That writhes about the roots of Sicily:      
To northern seas I’ll in a twinkling sail,      
And mount upon the snortings of a whale           245   
To some black cloud; thence down I’ll madly sweep      
On forked lightning, to the deepest deep,      
Where through some sucking pool I will be hurl’d      
With rapture to the other side of the world!      
O, I am full of gladness! Sisters three,           250   
I bow full hearted to your old decree!      
Yes, every god be thank’d, and power benign,      
For I no more shall wither, droop, and pine.      
Thou art the man!” Endymion started back      
Dismay’d; and, like a wretch from whom the rack           255   
Tortures hot breath, and speech of agony,      
Mutter’d: “What lonely death am I to die      
In this cold region? Will he let me freeze,      
And float my brittle limbs o’er polar seas?      
Or will he touch me with his searing hand,           260   
And leave a black memorial on the sand?      
Or tear me piece-meal with a bony saw,      
And keep me as a chosen food to draw      
His magian fish through hated fire and flame?      
O misery of hell! resistless, tame,           265   
Am I to be burnt up? No, I will shout,      
Until the gods through heaven’s blue look out!—      
O Tartarus! but some few days agone      
Her soft arms were entwining me, and on      
Her voice I hung like fruit among green leaves:           270   
Her lips were all my own, and—ah, ripe sheaves      
Of happiness! ye on the stubble droop,      
But never may be garner’d. I must stoop      
My head, and kiss death’s foot. Love! love, farewel!      
Is there no hope from thee? This horrid spell           275   
Would melt at thy sweet breath.—By Dian’s hind      
Feeding from her white fingers, on the wind      
I see thy streaming hair! and now, by Pan,      
I care not for this old mysterious man!”      
   
  He spake, and walking to that aged form,           280   
Look’d high defiance. Lo! his heart ’gan warm      
With pity, for the grey-hair’d creature wept.      
Had he then wrong’d a heart where sorrow kept?      
Had he, though blindly contumelious, brought      
Rheum to kind eyes, a sting to human thought,           285   
Convulsion to a mouth of many years?      
He had in truth; and he was ripe for tears.      
The penitent shower fell, as down he knelt      
Before that care-worn sage, who trembling felt      
About his large dark locks, and faultering spake:           290   
   
  “Arise, good youth, for sacred Phoebus’ sake!      
I know thine inmost bosom, and I feel      
A very brother’s yearning for thee steal      
Into mine own: for why? thou openest      
The prison gates that have so long opprest           295   
My weary watching. Though thou know’st it not,      
Thou art commission’d to this fated spot      
For great enfranchisement. O weep no more;      
I am a friend to love, to loves of yore:      
Aye, hadst thou never lov’d an unknown power           300   
I had been grieving at this joyous hour      
But even now most miserable old,      
I saw thee, and my blood no longer cold      
Gave mighty pulses: in this tottering case      
Grew a new heart, which at this moment plays           305   
As dancingly as thine. Be not afraid,      
For thou shalt hear this secret all display’d,      
Now as we speed towards our joyous task.”      
   
  So saying, this young soul in age’s mask      
Went forward with the Carian side by side:           310   
Resuming quickly thus; while ocean’s tide      
Hung swollen at their backs, and jewel’d sands      
Took silently their foot-prints.

                                  “My soul stands      
Now past the midway from mortality,      
And so I can prepare without a sigh           315   
To tell thee briefly all my joy and pain.      
I was a fisher once, upon this main,      
And my boat danc’d in every creek and bay;      
Rough billows were my home by night and day,—      
The sea-gulls not more constant; for I had           320   
No housing from the storm and tempests mad,      
But hollow rocks,—and they were palaces      
Of silent happiness, of slumberous ease:      
Long years of misery have told me so.      
Aye, thus it was one thousand years ago.           325   
One thousand years!—Is it then possible      
To look so plainly through them? to dispel      
A thousand years with backward glance sublime?      
To breathe away as ’twere all scummy slime      
From off a crystal pool, to see its deep,           330   
And one’s own image from the bottom peep?      
Yes: now I am no longer wretched thrall,      
My long captivity and moanings all      
Are but a slime, a thin-pervading scum,      
The which I breathe away, and thronging come           335   
Like things of yesterday my youthful pleasures.      
   
  “I touch’d no lute, I sang not, trod no measures:      
I was a lonely youth on desert shores.      
My sports were lonely, ’mid continuous roars,      
And craggy isles, and sea-mew’s plaintive cry           340   
Plaining discrepant between sea and sky.      
Dolphins were still my playmates; shapes unseen      
Would let me feel their scales of gold and green,      
Nor be my desolation; and, full oft,      
When a dread waterspout had rear’d aloft           345   
Its hungry hugeness, seeming ready ripe      
To burst with hoarsest thunderings, and wipe      
My life away like a vast sponge of fate,      
Some friendly monster, pitying my sad state,      
Has dived to its foundations, gulph’d it down,           350   
And left me tossing safely. But the crown      
Of all my life was utmost quietude:      
More did I love to lie in cavern rude,      
Keeping in wait whole days for Neptune’s voice,      
And if it came at last, hark, and rejoice!           355   
There blush’d no summer eve but I would steer      
My skiff along green shelving coasts, to hear      
The shepherd’s pipe come clear from aery steep,      
Mingled with ceaseless bleatings of his sheep:      
And never was a day of summer shine,           360   
But I beheld its birth upon the brine:      
For I would watch all night to see unfold      
Heaven’s gates, and Aethon snort his morning gold      
Wide o’er the swelling streams: and constantly      
At brim of day-tide, on some grassy lea,           365   
My nets would be spread out, and I at rest.      
The poor folk of the sea-country I blest      
With daily boon of fish most delicate:      
They knew not whence this bounty, and elate      
Would strew sweet flowers on a sterile beach.           370   
   
  “Why was I not contented? Wherefore reach      
At things which, but for thee, O Latmian!      
Had been my dreary death? Fool! I began      
To feel distemper’d longings: to desire      
The utmost privilege that ocean’s sire           375   
Could grant in benediction: to be free      
Of all his kingdom. Long in misery      
I wasted, ere in one extremest fit      
I plung’d for life or death. To interknit      
One’s senses with so dense a breathing stuff           380   
Might seem a work of pain; so not enough      
Can I admire how crystal-smooth it felt,      
And buoyant round my limbs. At first I dwelt      
Whole days and days in sheer astonishment;      
Forgetful utterly of self-intent;           385   
Moving but with the mighty ebb and flow.      
Then, like a new fledg’d bird that first doth shew      
His spreaded feathers to the morrow chill,      
I tried in fear the pinions of my will.      
’Twas freedom! and at once I visited           390   
The ceaseless wonders of this ocean-bed.      
No need to tell thee of them, for I see      
That thou hast been a witness—it must be      
For these I know thou canst not feel a drouth,      
By the melancholy corners of that mouth.           395   
So I will in my story straightway pass      
To more immediate matter. Woe, alas!      
That love should be my bane! Ah, Scylla fair!      
Why did poor Glaucus ever—ever dare      
To sue thee to his heart? Kind stranger-youth!           400   
I lov’d her to the very white of truth,      
And she would not conceive it. Timid thing!      
She fled me swift as sea-bird on the wing,      
Round every isle, and point, and promontory,      
From where large Hercules wound up his story           405   
Far as Egyptian Nile. My passion grew      
The more, the more I saw her dainty hue      
Gleam delicately through the azure clear:      
Until ’twas too fierce agony to bear;      
And in that agony, across my grief           410   
It flash’d, that Circe might find some relief—      
Cruel enchantress! So above the water      
I rear’d my head, and look’d for Phoebus’ daughter.      
Aeaea’s isle was wondering at the moon:—      
It seem’d to whirl around me, and a swoon           415   
Left me dead-drifting to that fatal power.      
   
  “When I awoke, ’twas in a twilight bower;      
Just when the light of morn, with hum of bees,      
Stole through its verdurous matting of fresh trees.      
How sweet, and sweeter! for I heard a lyre,           420   
And over it a sighing voice expire.      
It ceased—I caught light footsteps; and anon      
The fairest face that morn e’er look’d upon      
Push’d through a screen of roses. Starry Jove!      
With tears, and smiles, and honey-words she wove           425   
A net whose thraldom was more bliss than all      
The range of flower’d Elysium. Thus did fall      
The dew of her rich speech: “Ah! Art awake?      
O let me hear thee speak, for Cupid’s sake!      
I am so oppress’d with joy! Why, I have shed           430   
An urn of tears, as though thou wert cold dead;      
And now I find thee living, I will pour      
From these devoted eyes their silver store,      
Until exhausted of the latest drop,      
So it will pleasure thee, and force thee stop           435   
Here, that I too may live: but if beyond      
Such cool and sorrowful offerings, thou art fond      
Of soothing warmth, of dalliance supreme;      
If thou art ripe to taste a long love dream;      
If smiles, if dimples, tongues for ardour mute,           440   
Hang in thy vision like a tempting fruit,      
O let me pluck it for thee.” Thus she link’d      
Her charming syllables, till indistinct      
Their music came to my o’er-sweeten’d soul;      
And then she hover’d over me, and stole           445   
So near, that if no nearer it had been      
This furrow’d visage thou hadst never seen.      
   
  “Young man of Latmos! thus particular      
Am I, that thou may’st plainly see how far      
This fierce temptation went: and thou may’st not           450   
Exclaim, How then, was Scylla quite forgot?      
   
  “Who could resist? Who in this universe?      
She did so breathe ambrosia; so immerse      
My fine existence in a golden clime.      
She took me like a child of suckling time,           455   
And cradled me in roses. Thus condemn’d,      
The current of my former life was stemm’d,      
And to this arbitrary queen of sense      
I bow’d a tranced vassal: nor would thence      
Have mov’d, even though Amphion’s harp had woo’d           460   
Me back to Scylla o’er the billows rude.      
For as Apollo each eve doth devise      
A new appareling for western skies;      
So every eve, nay every spendthrift hour      
Shed balmy consciousness within that bower.           465   
And I was free of haunts umbrageous;      
Could wander in the mazy forest-house      
Of squirrels, foxes shy, and antler’d deer,      
And birds from coverts innermost and drear      
Warbling for very joy mellifluous sorrow—           470   
To me new born delights!

                          “Now let me borrow,      
For moments few, a temperament as stern      
As Pluto’s sceptre, that my words not burn      
These uttering lips, while I in calm speech tell      
How specious heaven was changed to real hell.           475   
   
  “One morn she left me sleeping: half awake      
I sought for her smooth arms and lips, to slake      
My greedy thirst with nectarous camel-draughts;      
But she was gone. Whereat the barbed shafts      
Of disappointment stuck in me so sore,           480   
That out I ran and search’d the forest o’er.      
Wandering about in pine and cedar gloom      
Damp awe assail’d me; for there ’gan to boom      
A sound of moan, an agony of sound,      
Sepulchral from the distance all around.           485   
Then came a conquering earth-thunder, and rumbled      
That fierce complain to silence: while I stumbled      
Down a precipitous path, as if impell’d.      
I came to a dark valley.—Groanings swell’d      
Poisonous about my ears, and louder grew,           490   
The nearer I approach’d a flame’s gaunt blue,      
That glar’d before me through a thorny brake.      
This fire, like the eye of gordian snake,      
Bewitch’d me towards; and I soon was near      
A sight too fearful for the feel of fear:           495   
In thicket hid I curs’d the haggard scene—      
The banquet of my arms, my arbour queen,      
Seated upon an uptorn forest root;      
And all around her shapes, wizard and brute,      
Laughing, and wailing, groveling, serpenting,           500   
Shewing tooth, tusk, and venom-bag, and sting!      
O such deformities! Old Charon’s self,      
Should he give up awhile his penny pelf,      
And take a dream ’mong rushes Stygian,      
It could not be so phantasied. Fierce, wan,           505   
And tyrannizing was the lady’s look,      
As over them a gnarled staff she shook.      
Oft-times upon the sudden she laugh’d out,      
And from a basket emptied to the rout      
Clusters of grapes, the which they raven’d quick           510   
And roar’d for more; with many a hungry lick      
About their shaggy jaws. Avenging, slow,      
Anon she took a branch of mistletoe,      
And emptied on’t a black dull-gurgling phial:      
Groan’d one and all, as if some piercing trial           515   
Was sharpening for their pitiable bones.      
She lifted up the charm: appealing groans      
From their poor breasts went sueing to her ear      
In vain; remorseless as an infant’s bier      
She whisk’d against their eyes the sooty oil.           520   
Whereat was heard a noise of painful toil,      
Increasing gradual to a tempest rage,      
Shrieks, yells, and groans of torture-pilgrimage;      
Until their grieved bodies ’gan to bloat      
And puff from the tail’s end to stifled throat:           525   
Then was appalling silence: then a sight      
More wildering than all that hoarse affright;      
For the whole herd, as by a whirlwind writhen,      
Went through the dismal air like one huge Python      
Antagonizing Boreas,—and so vanish’d.           530   
Yet there was not a breath of wind: she banish’d      
These phantoms with a nod. Lo! from the dark      
Came waggish fauns, and nymphs, and satyrs stark,      
With dancing and loud revelry,—and went      
Swifter than centaurs after rapine bent.—           535   
Sighing an elephant appear’d and bow’d      
Before the fierce witch, speaking thus aloud      
In human accent: “Potent goddess! chief      
Of pains resistless! make my being brief,      
Or let me from this heavy prison fly:           540   
Or give me to the air, or let me die!      
I sue not for my happy crown again;      
I sue not for my phalanx on the plain;      
I sue not for my lone, my widow’d wife;      
I sue not for my ruddy drops of life,           545   
My children fair, my lovely girls and boys!      
I will forget them; I will pass these joys;      
Ask nought so heavenward, so too—too high:      
Only I pray, as fairest boon, to die,      
Or be deliver’d from this cumbrous flesh,           550   
From this gross, detestable, filthy mesh,      
And merely given to the cold bleak air.      
Have mercy, Goddess! Circe, feel my prayer!”      
   
  That curst magician’s name fell icy numb      
Upon my wild conjecturing: truth had come           555   
Naked and sabre-like against my heart.      
I saw a fury whetting a death-dart;      
And my slain spirit, overwrought with fright,      
Fainted away in that dark lair of night.      
Think, my deliverer, how desolate           560   
My waking must have been! disgust, and hate,      
And terrors manifold divided me      
A spoil amongst them. I prepar’d to flee      
Into the dungeon core of that wild wood:      
I fled three days—when lo! before me stood           565   
Glaring the angry witch. O Dis, even now,      
A clammy dew is beading on my brow,      
At mere remembering her pale laugh, and curse.      
“Ha! ha! Sir Dainty! there must be a nurse      
Made of rose leaves and thistledown, express,           570   
To cradle thee my sweet, and lull thee: yes,      
I am too flinty-hard for thy nice touch:      
My tenderest squeeze is but a giant’s clutch.      
So, fairy-thing, it shall have lullabies      
Unheard of yet; and it shall still its cries           575   
Upon some breast more lily-feminine.      
Oh, no—it shall not pine, and pine, and pine      
More than one pretty, trifling thousand years;      
And then ’twere pity, but fate’s gentle shears      
Cut short its immortality. Sea-flirt!           580   
Young dove of the waters! truly I’ll not hurt      
One hair of thine: see how I weep and sigh,      
That our heart-broken parting is so nigh.      
And must we part? Ah, yes, it must be so.      
Yet ere thou leavest me in utter woe,           585   
Let me sob over thee my last adieus,      
And speak a blessing: Mark me! thou hast thews      
Immortal, for thou art of heavenly race:      
But such a love is mine, that here I chase      
Eternally away from thee all bloom           590   
Of youth, and destine thee towards a tomb.      
Hence shalt thou quickly to the watery vast;      
And there, ere many days be overpast,      
Disabled age shall seize thee; and even then      
Thou shalt not go the way of aged men;           595   
But live and wither, cripple and still breathe      
Ten hundred years: which gone, I then bequeath      
Thy fragile bones to unknown burial.      
Adieu, sweet love, adieu!”—As shot stars fall,      
She fled ere I could groan for mercy. Stung           600   
And poisoned was my spirit: despair sung      
A war-song of defiance ’gainst all hell.      
A hand was at my shoulder to compel      
My sullen steps; another ’fore my eyes      
Moved on with pointed finger. In this guise           605   
Enforced, at the last by ocean’s foam      
I found me; by my fresh, my native home.      
Its tempering coolness, to my life akin,      
Came salutary as I waded in;      
And, with a blind voluptuous rage, I gave           610   
Battle to the swollen billow-ridge, and drave      
Large froth before me, while there yet remain’d      
Hale strength, nor from my bones all marrow drain’d.      
   
  “Young lover, I must weep—such hellish spite      
With dry cheek who can tell? While thus my might           615   
Proving upon this element, dismay’d,      
Upon a dead thing’s face my hand I laid;      
I look’d—’twas Scylla! Cursed, cursed Circe!      
O vulture-witch, hast never heard of mercy?      
Could not thy harshest vengeance be content,           620   
But thou must nip this tender innocent      
Because I lov’d her?—Cold, O cold indeed      
Were her fair limbs, and like a common weed      
The sea-swell took her hair. Dead as she was      
I clung about her waist, nor ceas’d to pass           625   
Fleet as an arrow through unfathom’d brine,      
Until there shone a fabric crystalline,      
Ribb’d and inlaid with coral, pebble, and pearl.      
Headlong I darted; at one eager swirl      
Gain’d its bright portal, enter’d, and behold!           630   
’Twas vast, and desolate, and icy-cold;      
And all around—But wherefore this to thee      
Who in few minutes more thyself shalt see?—      
I left poor Scylla in a niche and fled.      
My fever’d parchings up, my scathing dread           635   
Met palsy half way: soon these limbs became      
Gaunt, wither’d, sapless, feeble, cramp’d, and lame.      
   
  “Now let me pass a cruel, cruel space,      
Without one hope, without one faintest trace      
Of mitigation, or redeeming bubble           640   
Of colour’d phantasy; for I fear ’twould trouble      
Thy brain to loss of reason: and next tell      
How a restoring chance came down to quell      
One half of the witch in me.

                                On a day,      
Sitting upon a rock above the spray,           645   
I saw grow up from the horizon’s brink      
A gallant vessel: soon she seem’d to sink      
Away from me again, as though her course      
Had been resum’d in spite of hindering force—      
So vanish’d: and not long, before arose           650   
Dark clouds, and muttering of winds morose.      
Old Eolus would stifle his mad spleen,      
But could not: therefore all the billows green      
Toss’d up the silver spume against the clouds.      
The tempest came: I saw that vessel’s shrouds           655   
In perilous bustle; while upon the deck      
Stood trembling creatures. I beheld the wreck;      
The final gulphing; the poor struggling souls:      
I heard their cries amid loud thunder-rolls.      
O they had all been sav’d but crazed eld           660   
Annull’d my vigorous cravings: and thus quell’d      
And curb’d, think on’t, O Latmian! did I sit      
Writhing with pity, and a cursing fit      
Against that hell-born Circe. The crew had gone,      
By one and one, to pale oblivion;           665   
And I was gazing on the surges prone,      
With many a scalding tear and many a groan,      
When at my feet emerg’d an old man’s hand,      
Grasping this scroll, and this same slender wand.      
I knelt with pain—reached out my hand—had grasp’d           670   
These treasures—touch’d the knuckles—they unclasp’d—      
I caught a finger: but the downward weight      
O’erpowered me—it sank. Then ’gan abate      
The storm, and through chill aguish gloom outburst      
The comfortable sun. I was athirst           675   
To search the book, and in the warming air      
Parted its dripping leaves with eager care.      
Strange matters did it treat of, and drew on      
My soul page after page, till well-nigh won      
Into forgetfulness; when, stupefied,           680   
I read these words, and read again, and tried      
My eyes against the heavens, and read again.      
O what a load of misery and pain      
Each Atlas-line bore off!—a shine of hope      
Came gold around me, cheering me to cope           685   
Strenuous with hellish tyranny. Attend!      
For thou hast brought their promise to an end.      
   
  “In the wide sea there lives a forlorn wretch,      
Doom’d with enfeebled carcase to outstretch      
His loath’d existence through ten centuries,           690   
And then to die alone. Who can devise      
A total opposition? No one. So      
One million times ocean must ebb and flow,      
And he oppressed. Yet he shall not die,      
These things accomplish’d:—If he utterly           695   
Scans all the depths of magic, and expounds      
The meanings of all motions, shapes, and sounds;      
If he explores all forms and substances      
Straight homeward to their symbol-essences;      
He shall not die. Moreover, and in chief,           700   
He must pursue this task of joy and grief      
Most piously;—all lovers tempest-tost,      
And in the savage overwhelming lost,      
He shall deposit side by side, until      
Time’s creeping shall the dreary space fulfil:           705   
Which done, and all these labours ripened,      
A youth, by heavenly power lov’d and led,      
Shall stand before him; whom he shall direct      
How to consummate all. The youth elect      
Must do the thing, or both will be destroy’d.”—           710   
   
  “Then,” cried the young Endymion, overjoy’d,      
“We are twin brothers in this destiny!      
Say, I intreat thee, what achievement high      
Is, in this restless world, for me reserv’d.      
What! if from thee my wandering feet had swerv’d,           715   
Had we both perish’d?”—“Look!” the sage replied,      
“Dost thou not mark a gleaming through the tide,      
Of divers brilliances? ’tis the edifice      
I told thee of, where lovely Scylla lies;      
And where I have enshrined piously           720   
All lovers, whom fell storms have doom’d to die      
Throughout my bondage.” Thus discoursing, on      
They went till unobscur’d the porches shone;      
Which hurryingly they gain’d, and enter’d straight.      
Sure never since king Neptune held his state           725   
Was seen such wonder underneath the stars.      
Turn to some level plain where haughty Mars      
Has legion’d all his battle; and behold      
How every soldier, with firm foot, doth hold      
His even breast: see, many steeled squares,           730   
And rigid ranks of iron—whence who dares      
One step? Imagine further, line by line,      
These warrior thousands on the field supine:—      
So in that crystal place, in silent rows,      
Poor lovers lay at rest from joys and woes.—           735   
The stranger from the mountains, breathless, trac’d      
Such thousands of shut eyes in order plac’d;      
Such ranges of white feet, and patient lips      
All ruddy,—for here death no blossom nips.      
He mark’d their brows and foreheads; saw their hair           740   
Put sleekly on one side with nicest care;      
And each one’s gentle wrists, with reverence,      
Put cross-wise to its heart.

                              “Let us commence,      
Whisper’d the guide, stuttering with joy, even now.”      
He spake, and, trembling like an aspen-bough,           745   
Began to tear his scroll in pieces small,      
Uttering the while some mumblings funeral.      
He tore it into pieces small as snow      
That drifts unfeather’d when bleak northerns blow;      
And having done it, took his dark blue cloak           750   
And bound it round Endymion: then struck      
His wand against the empty air times nine.—      
“What more there is to do, young man, is thine:      
But first a little patience; first undo      
This tangled thread, and wind it to a clue.           755   
Ah, gentle! ’tis as weak as spider’s skein;      
And shouldst thou break it—What, is it done so clean?      
A power overshadows thee! Oh, brave!      
The spite of hell is tumbling to its grave.      
Here is a shell; ’tis pearly blank to me,           760   
Nor mark’d with any sign or charactery—      
Canst thou read aught? O read for pity’s sake!      
Olympus! we are safe! Now, Carian, break      
This wand against yon lyre on the pedestal.”      
   
  ’Twas done: and straight with sudden swell and fall           765   
Sweet music breath’d her soul away, and sigh’d      
A lullaby to silence.—“Youth! now strew      
These minced leaves on me, and passing through      
Those files of dead, scatter the same around,      
And thou wilt see the issue.”—’Mid the sound           770   
Of flutes and viols, ravishing his heart,      
Endymion from Glaucus stood apart,      
And scatter’d in his face some fragments light.      
How lightning-swift the change! a youthful wight      
Smiling beneath a coral diadem,           775   
Out-sparkling sudden like an upturn’d gem,      
Appear’d, and, stepping to a beauteous corse,      
Kneel’d down beside it, and with tenderest force      
Press’d its cold hand, and wept—and Scylla sigh’d!      
Endymion, with quick hand, the charm applied—           780   
The nymph arose: he left them to their joy,      
And onward went upon his high employ,      
Showering those powerful fragments on the dead.      
And, as he pass’d, each lifted up its head,      
As doth a flower at Apollo’s touch.           785   
Death felt it to his inwards; ’twas too much:      
Death fell a weeping in his charnel-house.      
The Latmian persever’d along, and thus      
All were re-animated. There arose      
A noise of harmony, pulses and throes           790   
Of gladness in the air—while many, who      
Had died in mutual arms devout and true,      
Sprang to each other madly; and the rest      
Felt a high certainty of being blest.      
They gaz’d upon Endymion. Enchantment           795   
Grew drunken, and would have its head and bent.      
Delicious symphonies, like airy flowers,      
Budded, and swell’d, and, full-blown, shed full showers      
Of light, soft, unseen leaves of sounds divine.      
The two deliverers tasted a pure wine           800   
Of happiness, from fairy-press ooz’d out.      
Speechless they eyed each other, and about      
The fair assembly wander’d to and fro,      
Distracted with the richest overflow      
Of joy that ever pour’d from heaven.

                                    ——“Away!”           805   
Shouted the new-born god; “Follow, and pay      
Our piety to Neptunus supreme!”—      
Then Scylla, blushing sweetly from her dream,      
They led on first, bent to her meek surprise,      
Through portal columns of a giant size,           810   
Into the vaulted, boundless emerald.      
Joyous all follow’d, as the leader call’d,      
Down marble steps; pouring as easily      
As hour-glass sand—and fast, as you might see      
Swallows obeying the south summer’s call,           815   
Or swans upon a gentle waterfall.      
   
  Thus went that beautiful multitude, nor far,      
Ere from among some rocks of glittering spar,      
Just within ken, they saw descending thick      
Another multitude. Whereat more quick           820   
Moved either host. On a wide sand they met,      
And of those numbers every eye was wet;      
For each their old love found. A murmuring rose,      
Like what was never heard in all the throes      
Of wind and waters: ’tis past human wit           825   
To tell; ’tis dizziness to think of it.      
   
  This mighty consummation made, the host      
Mov’d on for many a league; and gain’d, and lost      
Huge sea-marks; vanward swelling in array,      
And from the rear diminishing away,—           830   
Till a faint dawn surpris’d them. Glaucus cried,      
“Behold! behold, the palace of his pride!      
God Neptune’s palaces!” With noise increas’d,      
They shoulder’d on towards that brightening east.      
At every onward step proud domes arose           835   
In prospect,—diamond gleams, and golden glows      
Of amber ’gainst their faces levelling.      
Joyous, and many as the leaves in spring,      
Still onward; still the splendour gradual swell’d.      
Rich opal domes were seen, on high upheld           840   
By jasper pillars, letting through their shafts      
A blush of coral. Copious wonder-draughts      
Each gazer drank; and deeper drank more near:      
For what poor mortals fragment up, as mere      
As marble was there lavish, to the vast           845   
Of one fair palace, that far far surpass’d,      
Even for common bulk, those olden three,      
Memphis, and Babylon, and Nineveh.      
   
  As large, as bright, as colour’d as the bow      
Of Iris, when unfading it doth shew           850   
Beyond a silvery shower, was the arch      
Through which this Paphian army took its march,      
Into the outer courts of Neptune’s state:      
Whence could be seen, direct, a golden gate,      
To which the leaders sped; but not half raught           855   
Ere it burst open swift as fairy thought,      
And made those dazzled thousands veil their eyes      
Like callow eagles at the first sunrise.      
Soon with an eagle nativeness their gaze      
Ripe from hue-golden swoons took all the blaze,           860   
And then, behold! large Neptune on his throne      
Of emerald deep: yet not exalt alone;      
At his right hand stood winged Love, and on      
His left sat smiling Beauty’s paragon.      
   
  Far as the mariner on highest mast           865   
Can see all round upon the calmed vast,      
So wide was Neptune’s hall: and as the blue      
Doth vault the waters, so the waters drew      
Their doming curtains, high, magnificent,      
Aw’d from the throne aloof;—and when storm-rent           870   
Disclos’d the thunder-gloomings in Jove’s air;      
But sooth’d as now, flash’d sudden everywhere,      
Noiseless, sub-marine cloudlets, glittering      
Death to a human eye: for there did spring      
From natural west, and east, and south, and north,           875   
A light as of four sunsets, blazing forth      
A gold-green zenith ’bove the Sea-God’s head.      
Of lucid depth the floor, and far outspread      
As breezeless lake, on which the slim canoe      
Of feather’d Indian darts about, as through           880   
The delicatest air: air verily,      
But for the portraiture of clouds and sky:      
This palace floor breath-air,—but for the amaze      
Of deep-seen wonders motionless,—and blaze      
Of the dome pomp, reflected in extremes,           885   
Globing a golden sphere.

                          They stood in dreams      
Till Triton blew his horn. The palace rang;      
The Nereids danc’d; the Syrens faintly sang;      
And the great Sea-King bow’d his dripping head.      
Then Love took wing, and from his pinions shed           890   
On all the multitude a nectarous dew.      
The ooze-born Goddess beckoned and drew      
Fair Scylla and her guides to conference;      
And when they reach’d the throned eminence      
She kist the sea-nymph’s cheek,—who sat her down           895   
A toying with the doves. Then,—“Mighty crown      
And sceptre of this kingdom!” Venus said,      
“Thy vows were on a time to Nais paid:      
Behold!”—Two copious tear-drops instant fell      
From the God’s large eyes; he smil’d delectable,           900   
And over Glaucus held his blessing hands.—      
“Endymion! Ah! still wandering in the bands      
Of love? Now this is cruel. Since the hour      
I met thee in earth’s bosom, all my power      
Have I put forth to serve thee. What, not yet           905   
Escap’d from dull mortality’s harsh net?      
A little patience, youth! ’twill not be long,      
Or I am skilless quite: an idle tongue,      
A humid eye, and steps luxurious,      
Where these are new and strange, are ominous.           910   
Aye, I have seen these signs in one of heaven,      
When others were all blind; and were I given      
To utter secrets, haply I might say      
Some pleasant words:—but Love will have his day.      
So wait awhile expectant. Pr’ythee soon,           915   
Even in the passing of thine honey-moon,      
Visit my Cytherea: thou wilt find      
Cupid well-natured, my Adonis kind;      
And pray persuade with thee—Ah, I have done,      
All blisses be upon thee, my sweet son!”—           920   
Thus the fair goddess: while Endymion      
Knelt to receive those accents halcyon.      
   
  Meantime a glorious revelry began      
Before the Water-Monarch. Nectar ran      
In courteous fountains to all cups outreach’d;           925   
And plunder’d vines, teeming exhaustless, pleach’d      
New growth about each shell and pendent lyre;      
The which, in disentangling for their fire,      
Pull’d down fresh foliage and coverture      
For dainty toying. Cupid, empire-sure,           930   
Flutter’d and laugh’d, and oft-times through the throng      
Made a delighted way. Then dance, and song,      
And garlanding grew wild; and pleasure reign’d.      
In harmless tendril they each other chain’d,      
And strove who should be smother’d deepest in           935   
Fresh crush of leaves.

                          O ’tis a very sin      
For one so weak to venture his poor verse      
In such a place as this. O do not curse,      
High Muses! let him hurry to the ending.      
   
  All suddenly were silent. A soft blending           940   
Of dulcet instruments came charmingly;      
And then a hymn.

                    “KING of the stormy sea!      
Brother of Jove, and co-inheritor      
Of elements! Eternally before      
Thee the waves awful bow. Fast, stubborn rock,           945   
At thy fear’d trident shrinking, doth unlock      
Its deep foundations, hissing into foam.      
All mountain-rivers lost, in the wide home      
Of thy capacious bosom ever flow.      
Thou frownest, and old Eolus thy foe           950   
Skulks to his cavern, ’mid the gruff complaint      
Of all his rebel tempests. Dark clouds faint      
When, from thy diadem, a silver gleam      
Slants over blue dominion. Thy bright team      
Gulphs in the morning light, and scuds along           955   
To bring thee nearer to that golden song      
Apollo singeth, while his chariot      
Waits at the doors of heaven. Thou art not      
For scenes like this: an empire stern hast thou;      
And it hath furrow’d that large front: yet now,           960   
As newly come of heaven, dost thou sit      
To blend and interknit      
Subdued majesty with this glad time.      
O shell-borne King sublime!      
We lay our hearts before thee evermore—           965   
We sing, and we adore!      
   
  “Breathe softly, flutes;      
Be tender of your strings, ye soothing lutes;      
Nor be the trumpet heard! O vain, O vain;      
Not flowers budding in an April rain,           970   
Nor breath of sleeping dove, nor river’s flow,—      
No, nor the Eolian twang of Love’s own bow,      
Can mingle music fit for the soft ear      
Of goddess Cytherea!      
Yet deign, white Queen of Beauty, thy fair eyes           975   
On our souls’ sacrifice.      
   
  “Bright-winged Child!      
Who has another care when thou hast smil’d?      
Unfortunates on earth, we see at last      
All death-shadows, and glooms that overcast           980   
Our spirits, fann’d away by thy light pinions.      
O sweetest essence! sweetest of all minions!      
God of warm pulses, and dishevell’d hair,      
And panting bosoms bare!      
Dear unseen light in darkness! eclipser           985   
Of light in light! delicious poisoner!      
Thy venom’d goblet will we quaff until      
We fill—we fill!      
And by thy Mother’s lips——”

                          Was heard no more      
For clamour, when the golden palace door           990   
Opened again, and from without, in shone      
A new magnificence. On oozy throne      
Smooth-moving came Oceanus the old,      
To take a latest glimpse at his sheep-fold,      
Before he went into his quiet cave           995   
To muse for ever—Then a lucid wave,      
Scoop’d from its trembling sisters of mid-sea,      
Afloat, and pillowing up the majesty      
Of Doris, and the Egean seer, her spouse—      
Next, on a dolphin, clad in laurel boughs,           1000   
Theban Amphion leaning on his lute:      
His fingers went across it—All were mute      
To gaze on Amphitrite, queen of pearls,      
And Thetis pearly too.—

                            The palace whirls      
Around giddy Endymion; seeing he           1005   
Was there far strayed from mortality.      
He could not bear it—shut his eyes in vain;      
Imagination gave a dizzier pain.      
“O I shall die! sweet Venus, be my stay!      
Where is my lovely mistress? Well-away!           1010   
I die—I hear her voice—I feel my wing—”      
At Neptune’s feet he sank. A sudden ring      
Of Nereids were about him, in kind strife      
To usher back his spirit into life:      
But still he slept. At last they interwove           1015   
Their cradling arms, and purpos’d to convey      
Towards a crystal bower far away.      
   
  Lo! while slow carried through the pitying crowd,      
To his inward senses these words spake aloud;      
Written in star-light on the dark above:           1020   
Dearest Endymion! my entire love!      
How have I dwelt in fear of fate: ’tis done—      
Immortal bliss for me too hast thou won.      
Arise then! for the hen-dove shall not hatch      
Her ready eggs, before I’ll kissing snatch           1025   
Thee into endless heaven. Awake! awake!      
   
  The youth at once arose: a placid lake      
Came quiet to his eyes; and forest green,      
Cooler than all the wonders he had seen,      
Lull’d with its simple song his fluttering breast.           1030   
How happy once again in grassy nest!      

Endymion   
   
Book IV   
   
   
Muse of my native land! loftiest Muse!      
O first-born on the mountains! by the hues      
Of heaven on the spiritual air begot:      
Long didst thou sit alone in northern grot,      
While yet our England was a wolfish den;           5   
Before our forests heard the talk of men;      
Before the first of Druids was a child;—      
Long didst thou sit amid our regions wild      
Rapt in a deep prophetic solitude.      
There came an eastern voice of solemn mood:—           10   
Yet wast thou patient. Then sang forth the Nine,      
Apollo’s garland:—yet didst thou divine      
Such home-bred glory, that they cry’d in vain,      
“Come hither, Sister of the Island!” Plain      
Spake fair Ausonia; and once more she spake           15   
A higher summons:—still didst thou betake      
Thee to thy native hopes. O thou hast won      
A full accomplishment! The thing is done,      
Which undone, these our latter days had risen      
On barren souls. Great Muse, thou know’st what prison           20   
Of flesh and bone, curbs, and confines, and frets      
Our spirit’s wings: despondency besets      
Our pillows; and the fresh to-morrow morn      
Seems to give forth its light in very scorn      
Of our dull, uninspired, snail-paced lives.           25   
Long have I said, how happy he who shrives      
To thee! But then I thought on poets gone,      
And could not pray:—nor can I now—so on      
I move to the end in lowliness of heart.——      
   
  “Ah, woe is me! that I should fondly part           30   
From my dear native land! Ah, foolish maid!      
Glad was the hour, when, with thee, myriads bade      
Adieu to Ganges and their pleasant fields!      
To one so friendless the clear freshet yields      
A bitter coolness, the ripe grape is sour:           35   
Yet I would have, great gods! but one short hour      
Of native air—let me but die at home.”      
   
  Endymion to heaven’s airy dome      
Was offering up a hecatomb of vows,      
When these words reach’d him. Whereupon he bows           40   
His head through thorny-green entanglement      
Of underwood, and to the sound is bent,      
Anxious as hind towards her hidden fawn.      
   
  “Is no one near to help me? No fair dawn      
Of life from charitable voice? No sweet saying           45   
To set my dull and sadden’d spirit playing?      
No hand to toy with mine? No lips so sweet      
That I may worship them? No eyelids meet      
To twinkle on my bosom? No one dies      
Before me, till from these enslaving eyes           50   
Redemption sparkles!—I am sad and lost.”      
   
  Thou, Carian lord, hadst better have been tost      
Into a whirlpool. Vanish into air,      
Warm mountaineer! for canst thou only bear      
A woman’s sigh alone and in distress?           55   
See not her charms! Is Phoebe passionless?      
Phoebe is fairer far—O gaze no more:—      
Yet if thou wilt behold all beauty’s store,      
Behold her panting in the forest grass!      
Do not those curls of glossy jet surpass           60   
For tenderness the arms so idly lain      
Amongst them? Feelest not a kindred pain,      
To see such lovely eyes in swimming search      
After some warm delight, that seems to perch      
Dovelike in the dim cell lying beyond           65   
Their upper lids?—Hist!

                          “O for Hermes’ wand      
To touch this flower into human shape!      
That woodland Hyacinthus could escape      
From his green prison, and here kneeling down      
Call me his queen, his second life’s fair crown!           70   
Ah me, how I could love!—My soul doth melt      
For the unhappy youth—Love! I have felt      
So faint a kindness, such a meek surrender      
To what my own full thoughts had made too tender,      
That but for tears my life had fled away!—           75   
Ye deaf and senseless minutes of the day,      
And thou, old forest, hold ye this for true,      
There is no lightning, no authentic dew      
But in the eye of love: there’s not a sound,      
Melodious howsoever, can confound           80   
The heavens and earth in one to such a death      
As doth the voice of love: there’s not a breath      
Will mingle kindly with the meadow air,      
Till it has panted round, and stolen a share      
Of passion from the heart!”—

                              Upon a bough           85   
He leant, wretched. He surely cannot now      
Thirst for another love: O impious,      
That he can even dream upon it thus!—      
Thought he, “Why am I not as are the dead,      
Since to a woe like this I have been led           90   
Through the dark earth, and through the wondrous sea?      
Goddess! I love thee not the less: from thee      
By Juno’s smile I turn not—no, no, no—      
While the great waters are at ebb and flow.—      
I have a triple soul! O fond pretence—           95   
For both, for both my love is so immense,      
I feel my heart is cut in twain for them.”      
   
  And so he groan’d, as one by beauty slain.      
The lady’s heart beat quick, and he could see      
Her gentle bosom heave tumultuously.           100   
He sprang from his green covert: there she lay,      
Sweet as a muskrose upon new-made hay;      
With all her limbs on tremble, and her eyes      
Shut softly up alive. To speak he tries.      
“Fair damsel, pity me! forgive that I           105   
Thus violate thy bower’s sanctity!      
O pardon me, for I am full of grief—      
Grief born of thee, young angel! fairest thief!      
Who stolen hast away the wings wherewith      
I was to top the heavens. Dear maid, sith           110   
Thou art my executioner, and I feel      
Loving and hatred, misery and weal,      
Will in a few short hours be nothing to me,      
And all my story that much passion slew me;      
Do smile upon the evening of my days:           115   
And, for my tortur’d brain begins to craze,      
Be thou my nurse; and let me understand      
How dying I shall kiss that lily hand.—      
Dost weep for me? Then should I be content.      
Scowl on, ye fates! until the firmament           120   
Outblackens Erebus, and the full-cavern’d earth      
Crumbles into itself. By the cloud girth      
Of Jove, those tears have given me a thirst      
To meet oblivion.”—As her heart would burst      
The maiden sobb’d awhile, and then replied:           125   
“Why must such desolation betide      
As that thou speakest of? Are not these green nooks      
Empty of all misfortune? Do the brooks      
Utter a gorgon voice? Does yonder thrush,      
Schooling its half-fledg’d little ones to brush           130   
About the dewy forest, whisper tales?—      
Speak not of grief, young stranger, or cold snails      
Will slime the rose to night. Though if thou wilt,      
Methinks ’twould be a guilt—a very guilt—      
Not to companion thee, and sigh away           135   
The light—the dusk—the dark—till break of day!”      
“Dear lady,” said Endymion, “’tis past:      
I love thee! and my days can never last.      
That I may pass in patience still speak:      
Let me have music dying, and I seek           140   
No more delight—I bid adieu to all.      
Didst thou not after other climates call,      
And murmur about Indian streams?”—Then she,      
Sitting beneath the midmost forest tree,      
For pity sang this roundelay———           145   
          “O Sorrow,      
          Why dost borrow      
The natural hue of health, from vermeil lips?—      
          To give maiden blushes      
          To the white rose bushes?           150   
Or is it thy dewy hand the daisy tips?      
   
          “O Sorrow,      
          Why dost borrow      
The lustrous passion from a falcon-eye?—      
          To give the glow-worm light?           155   
          Or, on a moonless night,      
To tinge, on syren shores, the salt sea-spry?      
   
          “O Sorrow,      
          Why dost borrow      
The mellow ditties from a mourning tongue?—           160   
          To give at evening pale      
          Unto the nightingale,      
That thou mayst listen the cold dews among?      
   
          “O Sorrow,      
          Why dost borrow           165   
Heart’s lightness from the merriment of May?—      
          A lover would not tread      
          A cowslip on the head,      
Though he should dance from eve till peep of day—      
          Nor any drooping flower           170   
          Held sacred for thy bower,      
Wherever he may sport himself and play.      
   
          “To Sorrow      
          I bade good-morrow,      
And thought to leave her far away behind;           175   
          But cheerly, cheerly,      
          She loves me dearly;      
She is so constant to me, and so kind:      
          I would deceive her      
          And so leave her,           180   
But ah! she is so constant and so kind.      
   
“Beneath my palm trees, by the river side,      
I sat a weeping: in the whole world wide      
There was no one to ask me why I wept,—      
          And so I kept           185   
Brimming the water-lily cups with tears      
          Cold as my fears.      
   
“Beneath my palm trees, by the river side,      
I sat a weeping: what enamour’d bride,      
Cheated by shadowy wooer from the clouds,           190   
        But hides and shrouds      
Beneath dark palm trees by a river side?      
   
“And as I sat, over the light blue hills      
There came a noise of revellers: the rills      
Into the wide stream came of purple hue—           195   
        ’Twas Bacchus and his crew!      
The earnest trumpet spake, and silver thrills      
From kissing cymbals made a merry din—      
        ’Twas Bacchus and his kin!      
Like to a moving vintage down they came,           200   
Crown’d with green leaves, and faces all on flame;      
All madly dancing through the pleasant valley,      
        To scare thee, Melancholy!      
O then, O then, thou wast a simple name!      
And I forgot thee, as the berried holly           205   
By shepherds is forgotten, when, in June,      
Tall chesnuts keep away the sun and moon:—      
        I rush’d into the folly!      
   
“Within his car, aloft, young Bacchus stood,      
Trifling his ivy-dart, in dancing mood,           210   
        With sidelong laughing;      
And little rills of crimson wine imbrued      
His plump white arms, and shoulders, enough white      
        For Venus’ pearly bite;      
And near him rode Silenus on his ass,           215   
Pelted with flowers as he on did pass      
        Tipsily quaffing.      
   
“Whence came ye, merry Damsels! whence came ye!      
So many, and so many, and such glee?      
Why have ye left your bowers desolate,           220   
        Your lutes, and gentler fate?—      
‘We follow Bacchus! Bacchus on the wing?      
        A conquering!      
Bacchus, young Bacchus! good or ill betide,      
We dance before him thorough kingdoms wide:—           225   
Come hither, lady fair, and joined be      
        To our wild minstrelsy!’      
   
“Whence came ye, jolly Satyrs! whence came ye!      
So many, and so many, and such glee?      
Why have ye left your forest haunts, why left           230   
        Your nuts in oak-tree cleft?—      
‘For wine, for wine we left our kernel tree;      
For wine we left our heath, and yellow brooms,      
        And cold mushrooms;      
For wine we follow Bacchus through the earth;           235   
Great God of breathless cups and chirping mirth!—      
Come hither, lady fair, and joined be      
To our mad minstrelsy!’      
   
“Over wide streams and mountains great we went,      
And, save when Bacchus kept his ivy tent,           240   
Onward the tiger and the leopard pants,      
        With Asian elephants:      
Onward these myriads—with song and dance,      
With zebras striped, and sleek Arabians’ prance,      
Web-footed alligators, crocodiles,           245   
Bearing upon their scaly backs, in files,      
Plump infant laughers mimicking the coil      
Of seamen, and stout galley-rowers’ toil:      
With toying oars and silken sails they glide,      
        Nor care for wind and tide.           250   
   
“Mounted on panthers’ furs and lions’ manes,      
From rear to van they scour about the plains;      
A three days’ journey in a moment done:      
And always, at the rising of the sun,      
About the wilds they hunt with spear and horn,           255   
        On spleenful unicorn.      
   
“I saw Osirian Egypt kneel adown      
        Before the vine-wreath crown!      
I saw parch’d Abyssinia rouse and sing      
        To the silver cymbals’ ring!           260   
I saw the whelming vintage hotly pierce      
        Old Tartary the fierce!      
The kings of Inde their jewel-sceptres vail,      
And from their treasures scatter pearled hail;      
Great Brahma from his mystic heaven groans,           265   
        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           270   
        Alone, without a peer:      
And I have told thee all thou mayest hear.      
   
          “Young stranger!      
          I’ve been a ranger      
In search of pleasure throughout every clime:           275   
          Alas! ’tis not for me!      
          Bewitch’d I sure must be,      
To lose in grieving all my maiden prime.      
   
          “Come then, Sorrow!      
          Sweetest Sorrow!           280   
Like an own babe I nurse thee on my breast:      
          I thought to leave thee      
          And deceive thee,      
But now of all the world I love thee best.      
   
          “There is not one,           285   
          No, no, not one      
But thee to comfort a poor lonely maid;      
          Thou art her mother,      
          And her brother,      
Her playmate, and her wooer in the shade.”           290   
   
  O what a sigh she gave in finishing,      
And look, quite dead to every worldly thing!      
Endymion could not speak, but gazed on her;      
And listened to the wind that now did stir      
About the crisped oaks full drearily,           295   
Yet with as sweet a softness 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;           300   
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?           305   
O thou could’st 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!—           310   
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;           315   
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 this world—sweet dewy blossom!”—Woe!           320   
Woe! Woe to that Endymion! Where is he?—      
Even these words went echoing dismally      
Through the wide forest—a most fearful tone,      
Like one repenting in his latest moan;      
And while it died away a shade pass’d by,           325   
As of a thunder cloud. When arrows fly      
Through the thick branches, poor ring-doves sleek forth      
Their timid necks and tremble; so these both      
Leant to each other trembling, and sat so      
Waiting for some destruction—when lo,           330   
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           335   
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;           340   
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 plac’d the lovely dame           345   
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      
Exhal’d to Phoebus’ lips, away they are gone,      
Far from the earth away—unseen, alone,           350   
Among cool clouds and winds, but that the free,      
The buoyant life of song can floating be      
Above their heads, and follow them untir’d.—      
Muse of my native land, am I inspir’d?      
This is the giddy air, and I must spread           355   
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           360   
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,           365   
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.           370   
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           375   
There came a dream, shewing 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.           380   
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,           385   
Diversely ting’d 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           390   
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,           395   
With an eye-guess towards some pleasant vale      
Descry a favourite hamlet faint and far.      
   
  These raven horses, though they foster’d are      
Of earth’s splenetic fire, dully drop      
Their full-veined ears, nostrils blood wide, and stop;           400   
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           405   
Upon a calm sea drifting: and meanwhile      
The mournful wanderer dreams. Behold! he walks      
On heaven’s pavement; brotherly he talks      
To divine powers: from his hand full fain      
Juno’s proud birds are pecking pearly grain:           410   
He tries the nerve of Phoebus’ 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           415   
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           420   
Are visible above: the Seasons four,—      
Green-kyrtled 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           425   
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,           430   
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,           435   
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           440   
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,           445   
To that fair shadow’d passion puls’d 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      
Awhile forgetful of all beauty save           450   
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.           455   
At this the shadow wept, melting away.      
The Latmian started up: “Bright goddess, stay!      
Search my most hidden breast! By truth’s own tongue,      
I have no dædale heart: why is it wrung      
To desperation? Is there nought for me,           460   
Upon the bourne of bliss, but misery?”      
   
  These words awoke the stranger of dark tresses:      
Her dawning love-look rapt Endymion blesses      
With ’haviour soft. Sleep yawned from underneath.      
“Thou swan of Ganges, let us no more breathe           465   
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           470   
Hath no revenge in it: as it is whole      
In tenderness, would I were whole in love!      
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           475   
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:           480   
Shall we away?” He rous’d the steeds: they beat      
Their wings chivalrous into the clear air,      
Leaving old Sleep within his vapoury lair.      
   
  The good-night blush of eve was waning slow,      
And Vesper, risen star, began to throe           485   
In the dusk heavens silvery, when they      
Thus sprang direct towards the Galaxy.      
Nor did speed hinder converse soft and strange—      
Eternal oaths and vows they interchange,      
In such wise, in such temper, so aloof           490   
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 griev’d, or toy’d—      
Most like with joy gone mad, with sorrow cloy’d.           495   
   
  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 scymetar;      
Bright signal that she only stoop’d to tie           500   
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           505   
This beauty in its birth—Despair! despair!      
He saw her body fading gaunt and spare      
In the cold moonshine. Straight he seiz’d her wrist;      
It melted from his grasp: her hand he kiss’d,      
And, horror! kiss’d his own—he was alone.           510   
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.           515   
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           520   
At random flies; they are the proper home      
Of every ill: the man is yet to come      
Who hath not journeyed in this native hell.      
But few have ever felt how calm and well      
Sleep may be had in that deep den of all.           525   
There anguish does not sting; nor pleasure pall:      
Woe-hurricanes beat ever at the gate,      
Yet all is still within and desolate.      
Beset with painful gusts, within ye hear      
No sound so loud as when on curtain’d bier           530   
The death-watch tick is stifled. Enter none      
Who strive therefore: 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—           535   
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;           540   
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!           545   
For, never since thy griefs and woes began,      
Hast thou felt so content: a grievous feud      
Hath let thee to this Cave of Quietude.      
Aye, his lull’d soul was there, although upborne      
With dangerous speed: and so he did not mourn           550   
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           555   
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           560   
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           565   
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!           570   
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,           575   
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!—           580   
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:           585   
Dissolve the frozen purity of air;      
Let thy white shoulders silvery and bare      
Shew cold through watery pinions; make more bright      
The Star-Queen’s crescent on her marriage night:      
        Haste, haste away!—           590   
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!           595   
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,           600   
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.           605   
Danae’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.—           610   
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           615   
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,           620   
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;           625   
Let us ay 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,           630   
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           635   
His forest wildernesses. I have clung      
To nothing, lov’d a nothing, nothing seen      
Or felt but a great dream! O I have been      
Presumptuous against love, against the sky,      
Against all elements, against the tie           640   
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.           645   
There never liv’d a mortal man, who bent      
His appetite beyond his natural sphere,      
But starv’d and died. My sweetest Indian, here,      
Here will I kneel, for thou redeemed hast      
My life from too thin breathing: gone and past           650   
Are cloudy phantasms. Caverns lone, farewel!      
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.           655   
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           660   
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,           665   
Warm as a dove’s nest among summer trees,      
And warm with dew at 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           670   
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;           675   
Dusk for our loves, yet light enough to grace      
Those gentle limbs on mossy bed reclin’d:      
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           680   
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:           685   
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,—           690   
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,           695   
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.           700   
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,      
That I may see thy beauty through the night;           705   
To Flora, and a nightingale shall light      
Tame on thy finger; to the River-gods,      
And they shall bring thee taper fishing-rods      
Of gold, and lines of Naiads’ long bright tress.      
Heaven shield thee for thine utter loveliness!           710   
Thy mossy footstool shall the altar be      
’Fore which I’ll bend, bending, dear love, to thee:      
Those lips shall be my Delphos, and shall speak      
Laws to my footsteps, colour to my cheek,      
Trembling or stedfastness to this same voice,           715   
And of three sweetest pleasurings the choice:      
And that affectionate light, those diamond things,      
Those eyes, those passions, those supreme pearl springs,      
Shall be my grief, or twinkle me to pleasure.      
Say, is not bliss within our perfect seisure?           720   
O that I could not doubt?”

                              The mountaineer      
Thus strove by fancies vain and crude to clear      
His briar’d path to some tranquillity.      
It gave bright gladness to his lady’s eye,      
And yet the tears she wept were tears of sorrow;           725   
Answering thus, just as the golden morrow      
Beam’d upward from the vallies of the east:      
“O that the flutter of this heart had ceas’d,      
Or the sweet name of love had pass’d away.      
Young feather’d tyrant! by a swift decay           730   
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.           735   
Art thou not cruel? Ever have I striven      
To think thee kind, but ah, it will not do!      
When yet a child, I heard that kisses drew      
Favour from thee, and so I kisses gave      
To the void air, bidding them find out love:           740   
But when I came to feel how far above      
All fancy, pride, and fickle maidenhood,      
All earthly pleasure, all imagin’d good,      
Was the warm tremble of a devout kiss,—      
Even then, that moment, at the thought of this,           745   
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,           750   
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           755   
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           760   
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 vallies green together went.           765   
Far wandering, they were perforce content      
To sit beneath a fair lone beechen tree;      
Nor at each other gaz’d, but heavily      
Por’d on its hazle cirque of shedded leaves.      
   
  Endymion! unhappy! it nigh grieves           770   
Me to behold thee thus in last extreme:      
Ensky’d ere this, but truly that I deem      
Truth the best music in a first-born song.      
Thy lute-voic’d brother will I sing ere long,      
And thou shalt aid—hast thou not aided me?           775   
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           780   
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           785   
By which he took his first soft poppy dream;      
And on the very bark ’gainst which he leant      
A crescent he had carv’d, and round it spent      
His skill in little stars. The teeming tree      
Had swollen and green’d the pious charactery,           790   
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,           795   
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!           800   
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           805   
When all great Latmos so exalt wilt 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.           810   
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;           815   
And when he is restor’d, 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;           820   
Free-voic’d as one who never was away.      
No tongue shall ask, whence come ye? but ye shall      
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,           825   
Since in my arbour 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 befal,           830   
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.           835   
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.           840   
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           845   
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,           850   
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           855   
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,           860   
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           865   
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!           870   
Wilt be content to dwell with her, to share      
This sister’s love with me?” Like one resign’d      
And bent by circumstance, and thereby blind      
In self-commitment, thus that meek unknown:      
“Aye, but a buzzing by my ears has flown,           875   
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!           880   
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           885   
Of Dian’s sisterhood; and, kind lady,      
With thy good help, this very night shall see      
My future days to her fane consecrate.”      
   
  As feels a dreamer what doth most create      
His own particular fright, so these three felt:           890   
Or like one who, in after ages, knelt      
To Lucifer or Baal, when he’d pine      
After a little sleep: or when in mine      
Far under-ground, a sleeper meets his friends      
Who know him not. Each diligently bends           895   
Towards common thoughts and things for very fear;      
Striving their ghastly malady to cheer,      
By thinking it a thing of yes and no,      
That housewives talk of. But the spirit-blow      
Was struck, and all were dreamers. At the last           900   
Endymion said: “Are not our fates all cast?      
Why stand we here? Adieu, ye tender pair!      
Adieu!” Whereat those maidens, with wild stare,      
Walk’d dizzily away. Pained and hot      
His eyes went after them, until they got           905   
Near to a cypress grove, whose deadly maw,      
In one swift moment, would what then he saw      
Engulph for ever. “Stay!” he cried, “ah, stay!      
Turn, damsels! hist! one word I have to say.      
Sweet Indian, I would see thee once again.           910   
It is a thing I dote on: so I’d fain,      
Peona, ye should hand in hand repair      
Into those holy groves, that silent are      
Behind great Dian’s temple. I’ll be yon,      
At vesper’s earliest twinkle—they are gone—           915   
But once, once, once again—” At this he press’d      
His hands against his face, and then did rest      
His head upon a mossy hillock green,      
And so remain’d as he a corpse had been      
All the long day; save when he scantly lifted           920   
His eyes abroad, to see how shadows shifted      
With the slow move of time,—sluggish and weary      
Until the poplar tops, in journey dreary,      
Had reach’d the river’s brim. Then up he rose,      
And, slowly as that very river flows,           925   
Walk’d towards the temple grove with this lament:      
“Why such a golden eve? The breeze is sent      
Careful and soft, that not a leaf may fall      
Before the serene father of them all      
Bows down his summer head below the west.           930   
Now am I of breath, speech, and speed possest,      
But at the setting I must bid adieu      
To her for the last time. Night will strew      
On the damp grass myriads of lingering leaves,      
And with them shall I die; nor much it grieves           935   
To die, when summer dies on the cold sward.      
Why, I have been a butterfly, a lord      
Of flowers, garlands, love-knots, silly posies,      
Groves, meadows, melodies, and arbour roses;      
My kingdom’s at its death, and just it is           940   
That I should die with it: so in all this      
We miscal grief, bale, sorrow, heartbreak, woe,      
What is there to plain of? By Titan’s foe      
I am but rightly serv’d.” So saying, he      
Tripp’d lightly on, in sort of deathful glee;           945   
Laughing at the clear stream and setting sun,      
As though they jests had been: nor had he done      
His laugh at nature’s holy countenance,      
Until that grove appear’d, as if perchance,      
And then his tongue with sober seemlihed           950   
Gave utterance as he entered: “Ha!” I said,      
“King of the butterflies; but by this gloom,      
And by old Rhadamanthus’ tongue of doom,      
This dusk religion, pomp of solitude,      
And the Promethean clay by thief endued,           955   
By old Saturnus’ forelock, by his head      
Shook with eternal palsy, I did wed      
Myself to things of light from infancy;      
And thus to be cast out, thus lorn to die,      
Is sure enough to make a mortal man           960   
Grow impious.” So he inwardly began      
On things for which no wording can be found;      
Deeper and deeper sinking, until drown’d      
Beyond the reach of music: for the choir      
Of Cynthia he heard not, though rough briar           965   
Nor muffling thicket interpos’d to dull      
The vesper hymn, far swollen, soft and full,      
Through the dark pillars of those sylvan aisles.      
He saw not the two maidens, nor their smiles,      
Wan as primroses gather’d at midnight           970   
By chilly finger’d spring. “Unhappy wight!      
Endymion!” said Peona, “we are here!      
What wouldst thou ere we all are laid on bier?”      
Then he embrac’d her, and his lady’s hand      
Press’d, saying:” Sister, I would have command,           975   
If it were heaven’s will, on our sad fate.”      
At which that dark-eyed stranger stood elate      
And said, in a new voice, but sweet as love,      
To Endymion’s amaze: “By Cupid’s dove,      
And so thou shalt! and by the lily truth           980   
Of my own breast thou shalt, beloved youth!”      
And as she spake, into her face there came      
Light, as reflected from a silver flame:      
Her long black hair swell’d ampler, in display      
Full golden; in her eyes a brighter day           985   
Dawn’d blue and full of love. Aye, he beheld      
Phoebe, his passion! joyous she upheld      
Her lucid bow, continuing thus; “Drear, drear      
Has our delaying been; but foolish fear      
Withheld me first; and then decrees of fate;           990   
And then ’twas fit that from this mortal state      
Thou shouldst, my love, by some unlook’d for change      
Be spiritualiz’d. Peona, we shall range      
These forests, and to thee they safe shall be      
As was thy cradle; hither shalt thou flee           995   
To meet us many a time.” Next Cynthia bright      
Peona kiss’d, and bless’d with fair good night:      
Her brother kiss’d her too, and knelt adown      
Before his goddess, in a blissful swoon.      
She gave her fair hands to him, and behold,           1000   
Before three swiftest kisses he had told,      
They vanish’d far away!—Peona went      
Home through the gloomy wood in wonderment.


THE END.

Lamia   
   
Part I   
   
   
Upon a time, before the faery broods      
Drove Nymph and Satyr from the prosperous woods,      
Before King Oberon’s bright diadem,      
Sceptre, and mantle, clasp’d with dewy gem,      
Frighted away the Dryads and the Fauns           5   
From rushes green, and brakes, and cowslip’d lawns,      
The ever-smitten Hermes empty left      
His golden throne, bent warm on amorous theft:      
From high Olympus had he stolen light,      
On this side of Jove’s clouds, to escape the sight           10   
Of his great summoner, and made retreat      
Into a forest on the shores of Crete.      
For somewhere in that sacred island dwelt      
A nymph, to whom all hoofed Satyrs knelt;      
At whose white feet the languid Tritons poured           15   
Pearls, while on land they wither’d and adored.      
Fast by the springs where she to bathe was wont,      
And in those meads where sometime she might haunt,      
Were strewn rich gifts, unknown to any Muse,      
Though Fancy’s casket were unlock’d to choose.           20   
Ah, what a world of love was at her feet!      
So Hermes thought, and a celestial heat      
Burnt from his winged heels to either ear,      
That from a whiteness, as the lily clear,      
Blush’d into roses ’mid his golden hair,           25   
Fallen in jealous curls about his shoulders bare.      
From vale to vale, from wood to wood, he flew,      
Breathing upon the flowers his passion new,      
And wound with many a river to its head,      
To find where this sweet nymph prepar’d her secret bed:           30   
In vain; the sweet nymph might nowhere be found,      
And so he rested, on the lonely ground,      
Pensive, and full of painful jealousies      
Of the Wood-Gods, and even the very trees.      
There as he stood, he heard a mournful voice,           35   
Such as once heard, in gentle heart, destroys      
All pain but pity: thus the lone voice spake:      
“When from this wreathed tomb shall I awake!      
“When move in a sweet body fit for life,      
“And love, and pleasure, and the ruddy strife           40   
“Of hearts and lips! Ah, miserable me!”      
The God, dove-footed, glided silently      
Round bush and tree, soft-brushing, in his speed,      
The taller grasses and full-flowering weed,      
Until he found a palpitating snake,           45   
Bright, and cirque-couchant in a dusky brake.      
   
  She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue,      
Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue;      
Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard,      
Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr’d;           50   
And full of silver moons, that, as she breathed,      
Dissolv’d, or brighter shone, or interwreathed      
Their lustres with the gloomier tapestries—      
So rainbow-sided, touch’d with miseries,      
She seem’d, at once, some penanced lady elf,           55   
Some demon’s mistress, or the demon’s self.      
Upon her crest she wore a wannish fire      
Sprinkled with stars, like Ariadne’s tiar:      
Her head was serpent, but ah, bitter-sweet!      
She had a woman’s mouth with all its pearls complete:           60   
And for her eyes: what could such eyes do there      
But weep, and weep, that they were born so fair?      
As Proserpine still weeps for her Sicilian air.      
Her throat was serpent, but the words she spake      
Came, as through bubbling honey, for Love’s sake,           65   
And thus; while Hermes on his pinions lay,      
Like a stoop’d falcon ere he takes his prey.      
   
  “Fair Hermes, crown’d with feathers, fluttering light,      
“I had a splendid dream of thee last night:      
“I saw thee sitting, on a throne of gold,           70   
“Among the Gods, upon Olympus old,      
“The only sad one; for thou didst not hear      
“The soft, lute-finger’d Muses chaunting clear,      
“Nor even Apollo when he sang alone,      
“Deaf to his throbbing throat’s long, long melodious moan.           75   
“I dreamt I saw thee, robed in purple flakes,      
“Break amorous through the clouds, as morning breaks,      
“And, swiftly as a bright Phoebean dart,      
“Strike for the Cretan isle; and here thou art!      
“Too gentle Hermes, hast thou found the maid?”           80   
Whereat the star of Lethe not delay’d      
His rosy eloquence, and thus inquired:      
“Thou smooth-lipp’d serpent, surely high inspired!      
“Thou beauteous wreath, with melancholy eyes,      
“Possess whatever bliss thou canst devise,           85   
“Telling me only where my nymph is fled,—      
“Where she doth breathe!” “Bright planet, thou hast said,”      
Return’d the snake, “but seal with oaths, fair God!”      
“I swear,” said Hermes, “by my serpent rod,      
“And by thine eyes, and by thy starry crown!”           90   
Light flew his earnest words, among the blossoms blown.      
Then thus again the brilliance feminine:      
“Too frail of heart! for this lost nymph of thine,      
“Free as the air, invisibly, she strays      
“About these thornless wilds; her pleasant days           95   
“She tastes unseen; unseen her nimble feet      
“Leave traces in the grass and flowers sweet;      
“From weary tendrils, and bow’d branches green,      
“She plucks the fruit unseen, she bathes unseen:      
“And by my power is her beauty veil’d           100   
“To keep it unaffronted, unassail’d      
“By the love-glances of unlovely eyes,      
“Of Satyrs, Fauns, and blear’d Silenus’ sighs.      
“Pale grew her immortality, for woe      
“Of all these lovers, and she grieved so           105   
“I took compassion on her, bade her steep      
“Her hair in weird syrops, that would keep      
“Her loveliness invisible, yet free      
“To wander as she loves, in liberty.      
“Thou shalt behold her, Hermes, thou alone,           110   
“If thou wilt, as thou swearest, grant my boon!”      
Then, once again, the charmed God began      
An oath, and through the serpent’s ears it ran      
Warm, tremulous, devout, psalterian.      
Ravish’d, she lifted her Circean head,           115   
Blush’d a live damask, and swift-lisping said,      
“I was a woman, let me have once more      
“A woman’s shape, and charming as before.      
“I love a youth of Corinth—O the bliss!      
“Give me my woman’s form, and place me where he is.           120   
“Stoop, Hermes, let me breathe upon thy brow,      
“And thou shalt see thy sweet nymph even now.”      
The God on half-shut feathers sank serene,      
She breath’d upon his eyes, and swift was seen      
Of both the guarded nymph near-smiling on the green.           125   
It was no dream; or say a dream it was,      
Real are the dreams of Gods, and smoothly pass      
Their pleasures in a long immortal dream.      
One warm, flush’d moment, hovering, it might seem      
Dash’d by the wood-nymph’s beauty, so he burn’d;           130   
Then, lighting on the printless verdure, turn’d      
To the swoon’d serpent, and with languid arm,      
Delicate, put to proof the lythe Caducean charm.      
So done, upon the nymph his eyes he bent,      
Full of adoring tears and blandishment,           135   
And towards her stept: she, like a moon in wane,      
Faded before him, cower’d, nor could restrain      
Her fearful sobs, self-folding like a flower      
That faints into itself at evening hour:      
But the God fostering her chilled hand,           140   
She felt the warmth, her eyelids open’d bland,      
And, like new flowers at morning song of bees,      
Bloom’d, and gave up her honey to the lees.      
Into the green-recessed woods they flew;      
Nor grew they pale, as mortal lovers do.           145   
   
  Left to herself, the serpent now began      
To change; her elfin blood in madness ran,      
Her mouth foam’d, and the grass, therewith besprent,      
Wither’d at dew so sweet and virulent;      
Her eyes in torture fix’d, and anguish drear,           150   
Hot, glaz’d, and wide, with lid-lashes all sear,      
Flash’d phosphor and sharp sparks, without one cooling tear.      
The colours all inflam’d throughout her train,      
She writh’d about, convuls’d with scarlet pain:      
A deep volcanian yellow took the place           155   
Of all her milder-mooned body’s grace;      
And, as the lava ravishes the mead,      
Spoilt all her silver mail, and golden brede;      
Made gloom of all her frecklings, streaks and bars,      
Eclips’d her crescents, and lick’d up her stars:           160   
So that, in moments few, she was undrest      
Of all her sapphires, greens, and amethyst,      
And rubious-argent: of all these bereft,      
Nothing but pain and ugliness were left.      
Still shone her crown; that vanish’d, also she           165   
Melted and disappear’d as suddenly;      
And in the air, her new voice luting soft,      
Cried, “Lycius! gentle Lycius!”—Borne aloft      
With the bright mists about the mountains hoar      
These words dissolv’d: Crete’s forests heard no more.           170   
   
  Whither fled Lamia, now a lady bright,      
A full-born beauty new and exquisite?      
She fled into that valley they pass o’er      
Who go to Corinth from Cenchreas’ shore;      
And rested at the foot of those wild hills,           175   
The rugged founts of the Peraean rills,      
And of that other ridge whose barren back      
Stretches, with all its mist and cloudy rack,      
South-westward to Cleone. There she stood      
About a young bird’s flutter from a wood,           180   
Fair, on a sloping green of mossy tread,      
By a clear pool, wherein she passioned      
To see herself escap’d from so sore ills,      
While her robes flaunted with the daffodils.      
   
  Ah, happy Lycius!—for she was a maid           185   
More beautiful than ever twisted braid,      
Or sigh’d, or blush’d, or on spring-flowered lea      
Spread a green kirtle to the minstrelsy:      
A virgin purest lipp’d, yet in the lore      
Of love deep learned to the red heart’s core:           190   
Not one hour old, yet of sciential brain      
To unperplex bliss from its neighbour pain;      
Define their pettish limits, and estrange      
Their points of contact, and swift counterchange;      
Intrigue with the specious chaos, and dispart           195   
Its most ambiguous atoms with sure art;      
As though in Cupid’s college she had spent      
Sweet days a lovely graduate, still unshent,      
And kept his rosy terms in idle languishment.      
   
  Why this fair creature chose so fairily           200   
By the wayside to linger, we shall see;      
But first ’tis fit to tell how she could muse      
And dream, when in the serpent prison-house,      
Of all she list, strange or magnificent:      
How, ever, where she will’d, her spirit went;           205   
Whether to faint Elysium, or where      
Down through tress-lifting waves the Nereids fair      
Wind into Thetis’ bower by many a pearly stair;      
Or where God Bacchus drains his cups divine,      
Stretch’d out, at ease, beneath a glutinous pine;           210   
Or where in Pluto’s gardens palatine      
Mulciber’s columns gleam in far piazzian line.      
And sometimes into cities she would send      
Her dream, with feast and rioting to blend;      
And once, while among mortals dreaming thus,           215   
She saw the young Corinthian Lycius      
Charioting foremost in the envious race,      
Like a young Jove with calm uneager face,      
And fell into a swooning love of him.      
Now on the moth-time of that evening dim           220   
He would return that way, as well she knew,      
To Corinth from the shore; for freshly blew      
The eastern soft wind, and his galley now      
Grated the quaystones with her brazen prow      
In port Cenchreas, from Egina isle           225   
Fresh anchor’d; whither he had been awhile      
To sacrifice to Jove, whose temple there      
Waits with high marble doors for blood and incense rare.      
Jove heard his vows, and better’d his desire;      
For by some freakful chance he made retire           230   
From his companions, and set forth to walk,      
Perhaps grown wearied of their Corinth talk:      
Over the solitary hills he fared,      
Thoughtless at first, but ere eve’s star appeared      
His phantasy was lost, where reason fades,           235   
In the calm’d twilight of Platonic shades.      
Lamia beheld him coming, near, more near—      
Close to her passing, in indifference drear,      
His silent sandals swept the mossy green;      
So neighbour’d to him, and yet so unseen           240   
She stood: he pass’d, shut up in mysteries,      
His mind wrapp’d like his mantle, while her eyes      
Follow’d his steps, and her neck regal white      
Turn’d—syllabling thus, “Ah, Lycius bright,      
“And will you leave me on the hills alone?           245   
“Lycius, look back! and be some pity shown.”      
He did; not with cold wonder fearingly,      
But Orpheus-like at an Eurydice;      
For so delicious were the words she sung,      
It seem’d he had lov’d them a whole summer long:           250   
And soon his eyes had drunk her beauty up,      
Leaving no drop in the bewildering cup,      
And still the cup was full,—while he afraid      
Lest she should vanish ere his lip had paid      
Due adoration, thus began to adore;           255   
Her soft look growing coy, she saw his chain so sure:      
“Leave thee alone! Look back! Ah, Goddess, see      
“Whether my eyes can ever turn from thee!      
“For pity do not this sad heart belie—      
“Even as thou vanishest so I shall die.           260   
“Stay! though a Naiad of the rivers, stay!      
“To thy far wishes will thy streams obey:      
“Stay! though the greenest woods be thy domain,      
“Alone they can drink up the morning rain:      
“Though a descended Pleiad, will not one           265   
“Of thine harmonious sisters keep in tune      
“Thy spheres, and as thy silver proxy shine?      
“So sweetly to these ravish’d ears of mine      
“Came thy sweet greeting, that if thou shouldst fade      
“Thy memory will waste me to a shade:—           270   
“For pity do not melt!”—“If I should stay,”      
Said Lamia, “here, upon this floor of clay,      
“And pain my steps upon these flowers too rough,      
“What canst thou say or do of charm enough      
“To dull the nice remembrance of my home?           275   
“Thou canst not ask me with thee here to roam      
“Over these hills and vales, where no joy is,—      
“Empty of immortality and bliss!      
“Thou art a scholar, Lycius, and must know      
“That finer spirits cannot breathe below           280   
“In human climes, and live: Alas! poor youth,      
“What taste of purer air hast thou to soothe      
“My essence? What serener palaces,      
“Where I may all my many senses please,      
“And by mysterious sleights a hundred thirsts appease?           285   
“It cannot be—Adieu!” So said, she rose      
Tiptoe with white arms spread. He, sick to lose      
The amorous promise of her lone complain,      
Swoon’d, murmuring of love, and pale with pain.      
The cruel lady, without any show           290   
Of sorrow for her tender favourite’s woe,      
But rather, if her eyes could brighter be,      
With brighter eyes and slow amenity,      
Put her new lips to his, and gave afresh      
The life she had so tangled in her mesh:           295   
And as he from one trance was wakening      
Into another, she began to sing,      
Happy in beauty, life, and love, and every thing,      
A song of love, too sweet for earthly lyres,      
While, like held breath, the stars drew in their panting fires           300   
And then she whisper’d in such trembling tone,      
As those who, safe together met alone      
For the first time through many anguish’d days,      
Use other speech than looks; bidding him raise      
His drooping head, and clear his soul of doubt,           305   
For that she was a woman, and without      
Any more subtle fluid in her veins      
Than throbbing blood, and that the self-same pains      
Inhabited her frail-strung heart as his.      
And next she wonder’d how his eyes could miss           310   
Her face so long in Corinth, where, she said,      
She dwelt but half retir’d, and there had led      
Days happy as the gold coin could invent      
Without the aid of love; yet in content      
Till she saw him, as once she pass’d him by,           315   
Where ’gainst a column he leant thoughtfully      
At Venus’ temple porch, ’mid baskets heap’d      
Of amorous herbs and flowers, newly reap’d      
Late on that eve, as ’twas the night before      
The Adonian feast; whereof she saw no more,           320   
But wept alone those days, for why should she adore?      
Lycius from death awoke into amaze,      
To see her still, and singing so sweet lays;      
Then from amaze into delight he fell      
To hear her whisper woman’s lore so well;           325   
And every word she spake entic’d him on      
To unperplex’d delight and pleasure known.      
Let the mad poets say whate’er they please      
Of the sweets of Fairies, Peris, Goddesses,      
There is not such a treat among them all,           330   
Haunters of cavern, lake, and waterfall,      
As a real woman, lineal indeed      
From Pyrrha’s pebbles or old Adam’s seed.      
Thus gentle Lamia judg’d, and judg’d aright,      
That Lycius could not love in half a fright,           335   
So threw the goddess off, and won his heart      
More pleasantly by playing woman’s part,      
With no more awe than what her beauty gave,      
That, while it smote, still guaranteed to save.      
Lycius to all made eloquent reply,           340   
Marrying to every word a twinborn sigh;      
And last, pointing to Corinth, ask’d her sweet,      
If ’twas too far that night for her soft feet.      
The way was short, for Lamia’s eagerness      
Made, by a spell, the triple league decrease           345   
To a few paces; not at all surmised      
By blinded Lycius, so in her comprized.      
They pass’d the city gates, he knew not how      
So noiseless, and he never thought to know.      
   
  As men talk in a dream, so Corinth all,           350   
Throughout her palaces imperial,      
And all her populous streets and temples lewd,      
Mutter’d, like tempest in the distance brew’d,      
To the wide-spreaded night above her towers.      
Men, women, rich and poor, in the cool hours,           355   
Shuffled their sandals o’er the pavement white,      
Companion’d or alone; while many a light      
Flared, here and there, from wealthy festivals,      
And threw their moving shadows on the walls,      
Or found them cluster’d in the corniced shade           360   
Of some arch’d temple door, or dusky colonnade.      
   
  Muffling his face, of greeting friends in fear,      
Her fingers he press’d hard, as one came near      
With curl’d gray beard, sharp eyes, and smooth bald crown,      
Slow-stepp’d, and robed in philosophic gown:           365   
Lycius shrank closer, as they met and past,      
Into his mantle, adding wings to haste,      
While hurried Lamia trembled: “Ah,” said he,      
“Why do you shudder, love, so ruefully?      
“Why does your tender palm dissolve in dew?”—           370   
“I’m wearied,” said fair Lamia: “tell me who      
“Is that old man? I cannot bring to mind      
“His features:—Lycius! wherefore did you blind      
“Yourself from his quick eyes?” Lycius replied,      
“’Tis Apollonius sage, my trusty guide           375   
“And good instructor; but to-night he seems      
“The ghost of folly haunting my sweet dreams.      
   
  While yet he spake they had arrived before      
A pillar’d porch, with lofty portal door,      
Where hung a silver lamp, whose phosphor glow           380   
Reflected in the slabbed steps below,      
Mild as a star in water; for so new,      
And so unsullied was the marble hue,      
So through the crystal polish, liquid fine,      
Ran the dark veins, that none but feet divine           385   
Could e’er have touch’d there. Sounds Aeolian      
Breath’d from the hinges, as the ample span      
Of the wide doors disclos’d a place unknown      
Some time to any, but those two alone,      
And a few Persian mutes, who that same year           390   
Were seen about the markets: none knew where      
They could inhabit; the most curious      
Were foil’d, who watch’d to trace them to their house:      
And but the flitter-winged verse must tell,      
For truth’s sake, what woe afterwards befel,           395   
’Twould humour many a heart to leave them thus,      
Shut from the busy world of more incredulous.

 Lamia   
   
Part II   
   
   
Love in a hut, with water and a crust,      
Is—Love, forgive us!—cinders, ashes, dust;      
Love in a palace is perhaps at last      
More grievous torment than a hermit’s fast:—      
That is a doubtful tale from faery land,           5   
Hard for the non-elect to understand.      
Had Lycius liv’d to hand his story down,      
He might have given the moral a fresh frown,      
Or clench’d it quite: but too short was their bliss      
To breed distrust and hate, that make the soft voice hiss.           10   
Besides, there, nightly, with terrific glare,      
Love, jealous grown of so complete a pair,      
Hover’d and buzz’d his wings, with fearful roar,      
Above the lintel of their chamber door,      
And down the passage cast a glow upon the floor.           15   
   
  For all this came a ruin: side by side      
They were enthroned, in the even tide,      
Upon a couch, near to a curtaining      
Whose airy texture, from a golden string,      
Floated into the room, and let appear           20   
Unveil’d the summer heaven, blue and clear,      
Betwixt two marble shafts:—there they reposed,      
Where use had made it sweet, with eyelids closed,      
Saving a tythe which love still open kept,      
That they might see each other while they almost slept;           25   
When from the slope side of a suburb hill,      
Deafening the swallow’s twitter, came a thrill      
Of trumpets—Lycius started—the sounds fled,      
But left a thought, a buzzing in his head.      
For the first time, since first he harbour’d in           30   
That purple-lined palace of sweet sin,      
His spirit pass’d beyond its golden bourn      
Into the noisy world almost forsworn.      
The lady, ever watchful, penetrant,      
Saw this with pain, so arguing a want           35   
Of something more, more than her empery      
Of joys; and she began to moan and sigh      
Because he mused beyond her, knowing well      
That but a moment’s thought is passion’s passing bell.      
“Why do you sigh, fair creature?” whisper’d he:           40   
“Why do you think?” return’d she tenderly:      
“You have deserted me;—where am I now?      
“Not in your heart while care weighs on your brow:      
“No, no, you have dismiss’d me; and I go      
“From your breast houseless: ay, it must be so.”           45   
He answer’d, bending to her open eyes,      
Where he was mirror’d small in paradise,      
“My silver planet, both of eve and morn!      
“Why will you plead yourself so sad forlorn,      
“While I am striving how to fill my heart           50   
“With deeper crimson, and a double smart?      
“How to entangle, trammel up and snare      
“Your soul in mine, and labyrinth you there      
“Like the hid scent in an unbudded rose?      
“Ay, a sweet kiss—you see your mighty woes.           55   
“My thoughts! shall I unveil them? Listen then!      
“What mortal hath a prize, that other men      
“May be confounded and abash’d withal,      
“But lets it sometimes pace abroad majestical,      
“And triumph, as in thee I should rejoice           60   
“Amid the hoarse alarm of Corinth’s voice.      
“Let my foes choke, and my friends shout afar,      
“While through the thronged streets your bridal car      
“Wheels round its dazzling spokes.”—The lady’s cheek      
Trembled; she nothing said, but, pale and meek,           65   
Arose and knelt before him, wept a rain      
Of sorrows at his words; at last with pain      
Beseeching him, the while his hand she wrung,      
To change his purpose. He thereat was stung,      
Perverse, with stronger fancy to reclaim           70   
Her wild and timid nature to his aim:      
Besides, for all his love, in self despite,      
Against his better self, he took delight      
Luxurious in her sorrows, soft and new.      
His passion, cruel grown, took on a hue           75   
Fierce and sanguineous as ’twas possible      
In one whose brow had no dark veins to swell.      
Fine was the mitigated fury, like      
Apollo’s presence when in act to strike      
The serpent—Ha, the serpent! certes, she           80   
Was none. She burnt, she lov’d the tyranny,      
And, all subdued, consented to the hour      
When to the bridal he should lead his paramour.      
Whispering in midnight silence, said the youth,      
“Sure some sweet name thou hast, though, by my truth,           85   
“I have not ask’d it, ever thinking thee      
“Not mortal, but of heavenly progeny,      
“As still I do. Hast any mortal name,      
“Fit appellation for this dazzling frame?      
“Or friends or kinsfolk on the citied earth,           90   
“To share our marriage feast and nuptial mirth?”      
“I have no friends,” said Lamia, “no, not one;      
“My presence in wide Corinth hardly known:      
“My parents’ bones are in their dusty urns      
“Sepulchred, where no kindled incense burns,           95   
“Seeing all their luckless race are dead, save me,      
“And I neglect the holy rite for thee.      
“Even as you list invite your many guests;      
“But if, as now it seems, your vision rests      
“With any pleasure on me, do not bid           100   
“Old Apollonius—from him keep me hid.”      
Lycius, perplex’d at words so blind and blank,      
Made close inquiry; from whose touch she shrank,      
Feigning a sleep; and he to the dull shade      
Of deep sleep in a moment was betray’d.           105   
   
  It was the custom then to bring away      
The bride from home at blushing shut of day,      
Veil’d, in a chariot, heralded along      
By strewn flowers, torches, and a marriage song,      
With other pageants: but this fair unknown           110   
Had not a friend. So being left alone,      
(Lycius was gone to summon all his kin)      
And knowing surely she could never win      
His foolish heart from its mad pompousness,      
She set herself, high-thoughted, how to dress           115   
The misery in fit magnificence.      
She did so, but ’tis doubtful how and whence      
Came, and who were her subtle servitors.      
About the halls, and to and from the doors,      
There was a noise of wings, till in short space           120   
The glowing banquet-room shone with wide-arched grace.      
A haunting music, sole perhaps and lone      
Supportress of the faery-roof, made moan      
Throughout, as fearful the whole charm might fade.      
Fresh carved cedar, mimicking a glade           125   
Of palm and plantain, met from either side,      
High in the midst, in honour of the bride:      
Two palms and then two plantains, and so on,      
From either side their stems branch’d one to one      
All down the aisled place; and beneath all           130   
There ran a stream of lamps straight on from wall to wall.      
So canopied, lay an untasted feast      
Teeming with odours. Lamia, regal drest,      
Silently paced about, and as she went,      
In pale contented sort of discontent,           135   
Mission’d her viewless servants to enrich      
The fretted splendour of each nook and niche.      
Between the tree-stems, marbled plain at first,      
Came jasper pannels; then, anon, there burst      
Forth creeping imagery of slighter trees,           140   
And with the larger wove in small intricacies.      
Approving all, she faded at self-will,      
And shut the chamber up, close, hush’d and still,      
Complete and ready for the revels rude,      
When dreadful guests would come to spoil her solitude.           145   
   
  The day appear’d, and all the gossip rout.      
O senseless Lycius! Madman! wherefore flout      
The silent-blessing fate, warm cloister’d hours,      
And show to common eyes these secret bowers?      
The herd approach’d; each guest, with busy brain,           150   
Arriving at the portal, gaz’d amain,      
And enter’d marveling: for they knew the street,      
Remember’d it from childhood all complete      
Without a gap, yet ne’er before had seen      
That royal porch, that high-built fair demesne;           155   
So in they hurried all, maz’d, curious and keen:      
Save one, who look’d thereon with eye severe,      
And with calm-planted steps walk’d in austere;      
’Twas Apollonius: something too he laugh’d,      
As though some knotty problem, that had daft           160   
His patient thought, had now begun to thaw,      
And solve and melt:—’twas just as he foresaw.      
   
  He met within the murmurous vestibule      
His young disciple. “’Tis no common rule,      
“Lycius,” said he, “for uninvited guest           165   
“To force himself upon you, and infest      
“With an unbidden presence the bright throng      
“Of younger friends; yet must I do this wrong,      
“And you forgive me.” Lycius blush’d, and led      
The old man through the inner doors broad-spread;           170   
With reconciling words and courteous mien      
Turning into sweet milk the sophist’s spleen.      
   
  Of wealthy lustre was the banquet-room,      
Fill’d with pervading brilliance and perfume:      
Before each lucid pannel fuming stood           175   
A censer fed with myrrh and spiced wood,      
Each by a sacred tripod held aloft,      
Whose slender feet wide-swerv’d upon the soft      
Wool-woofed carpets: fifty wreaths of smoke      
From fifty censers their light voyage took           180   
To the high roof, still mimick’d as they rose      
Along the mirror’d walls by twin-clouds odorous.      
Twelve sphered tables, by silk seats insphered,      
High as the level of a man’s breast rear’d      
On libbard’s paws, upheld the heavy gold           185   
Of cups and goblets, and the store thrice told      
Of Ceres’ horn, and, in huge vessels, wine      
Came from the gloomy tun with merry shine.      
Thus loaded with a feast the tables stood,      
Each shrining in the midst the image of a God.           190   
   
  When in an antichamber every guest      
Had felt the cold full sponge to pleasure press’d,      
By minist’ring slaves, upon his hands and feet,      
And fragrant oils with ceremony meet      
Pour’d on his hair, they all mov’d to the feast           195   
In white robes, and themselves in order placed      
Around the silken couches, wondering      
Whence all this mighty cost and blaze of wealth could spring.      
   
  Soft went the music the soft air along,      
While fluent Greek a vowel’d undersong           200   
Kept up among the guests discoursing low      
At first, for scarcely was the wine at flow;      
But when the happy vintage touch’d their brains,      
Louder they talk, and louder come the strains      
Of powerful instruments:—the gorgeous dyes,           205   
The space, the splendour of the draperies,      
The roof of awful richness, nectarous cheer,      
Beautiful slaves, and Lamia’s self, appear,      
Now, when the wine has done its rosy deed,      
And every soul from human trammels freed,           210   
No more so strange; for merry wine, sweet wine,      
Will make Elysian shades not too fair, too divine.      
Soon was God Bacchus at meridian height;      
Flush’d were their cheeks, and bright eyes double bright:      
Garlands of every green, and every scent           215   
From vales deflower’d, or forest-trees branch rent,      
In baskets of bright osier’d gold were brought      
High as the handles heap’d, to suit the thought      
Of every guest; that each, as he did please,      
Might fancy-fit his brows, silk-pillow’d at his ease.           220   
   
  What wreath for Lamia? What for Lycius?      
What for the sage, old Apollonius?      
Upon her aching forehead be there hung      
The leaves of willow and of adder’s tongue;      
And for the youth, quick, let us strip for him           225   
The thyrsus, that his watching eyes may swim      
Into forgetfulness; and, for the sage,      
Let spear-grass and the spiteful thistle wage      
War on his temples. Do not all charms fly      
At the mere touch of cold philosophy?           230   
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:      
We know her woof, her texture; she is given      
In the dull catalogue of common things.      
Philosophy will clip an Angel’s wings,      
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,           235   
Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine—      
Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made      
The tender-person’d Lamia melt into a shade.      
   
  By her glad Lycius sitting, in chief place,      
Scarce saw in all the room another face,           240   
Till, checking his love trance, a cup he took      
Full brimm’d, and opposite sent forth a look      
’Cross the broad table, to beseech a glance      
From his old teacher’s wrinkled countenance,      
And pledge him. The bald-head philosopher           245   
Had fix’d his eye, without a twinkle or stir      
Full on the alarmed beauty of the bride,      
Brow-beating her fair form, and troubling her sweet pride.      
Lycius then press’d her hand, with devout touch,      
As pale it lay upon the rosy couch:           250   
’Twas icy, and the cold ran through his veins;      
Then sudden it grew hot, and all the pains      
Of an unnatural heat shot to his heart.      
“Lamia, what means this? Wherefore dost thou start?      
“Know’st thou that man?” Poor Lamia answer’d not.           255   
He gaz’d into her eyes, and not a jot      
Own’d they the lovelorn piteous appeal:      
More, more he gaz’d: his human senses reel:      
Some hungry spell that loveliness absorbs;      
There was no recognition in those orbs.           260   
“Lamia!” he cried—and no soft-toned reply.      
The many heard, and the loud revelry      
Grew hush; the stately music no more breathes;      
The myrtle sicken’d in a thousand wreaths.      
By faint degrees, voice, lute, and pleasure ceased;           265   
A deadly silence step by step increased,      
Until it seem’d a horrid presence there,      
And not a man but felt the terror in his hair.      
“Lamia!” he shriek’d; and nothing but the shriek      
With its sad echo did the silence break.           270   
“Begone, foul dream!” he cried, gazing again      
In the bride’s face, where now no azure vein      
Wander’d on fair-spaced temples; no soft bloom      
Misted the cheek; no passion to illume      
The deep-recessed vision:—all was blight;           275   
Lamia, no longer fair, there sat a deadly white.      
“Shut, shut those juggling eyes, thou ruthless man!      
“Turn them aside, wretch! or the righteous ban      
“Of all the Gods, whose dreadful images      
“Here represent their shadowy presences,           280   
“May pierce them on the sudden with the thorn      
“Of painful blindness; leaving thee forlorn,      
“In trembling dotage to the feeblest fright      
“Of conscience, for their long offended might,      
“For all thine impious proud-heart sophistries,           285   
“Unlawful magic, and enticing lies.      
“Corinthians! look upon that gray-beard wretch!      
“Mark how, possess’d, his lashless eyelids stretch      
“Around his demon eyes! Corinthians, see!      
“My sweet bride withers at their potency.”           290   
“Fool!” said the sophist, in an under-tone      
Gruff with contempt; which a death-nighing moan      
From Lycius answer’d, as heart-struck and lost,      
He sank supine beside the aching ghost.      
“Fool! Fool!” repeated he, while his eyes still           295   
Relented not, nor mov’d; “from every ill      
“Of life have I preserv’d thee to this day,      
“And shall I see thee made a serpent’s prey?      
Then Lamia breath’d death breath; the sophist’s eye,      
Like a sharp spear, went through her utterly,           300   
Keen, cruel, perceant, stinging: she, as well      
As her weak hand could any meaning tell,      
Motion’d him to be silent; vainly so,      
He look’d and look’d again a level—No!      
“A Serpent!” echoed he; no sooner said,           305   
Than with a frightful scream she vanished:      
And Lycius’ arms were empty of delight,      
As were his limbs of life, from that same night.      
On the high couch he lay!—his friends came round—      
Supported him—no pulse, or breath they found,           310   
And, in its marriage robe, the heavy body wound.      

 Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil   
   
A Story from Boccaccio   
   
   
I.

FAIR Isabel, poor simple Isabel!      
  Lorenzo, a young palmer in Love’s eye!      
They could not in the self-same mansion dwell      
  Without some stir of heart, some malady;      
They could not sit at meals but feel how well           5   
  It soothed each to be the other by;      
They could not, sure, beneath the same roof sleep      
But to each other dream, and nightly weep.      
   
II.

With every morn their love grew tenderer,      
  With every eve deeper and tenderer still;           10   
He might not in house, field, or garden stir,      
  But her full shape would all his seeing fill;      
And his continual voice was pleasanter      
  To her, than noise of trees or hidden rill;      
Her lute-string gave an echo of his name,           15   
She spoilt her half-done broidery with the same.      
   
III.

He knew whose gentle hand was at the latch,      
  Before the door had given her to his eyes;      
And from her chamber-window he would catch      
  Her beauty farther than the falcon spies;           20   
And constant as her vespers would he watch,      
  Because her face was turn’d to the same skies;      
And with sick longing all the night outwear,      
To hear her morning-step upon the stair.      
   
IV.

A whole long month of May in this sad plight           25   
  Made their cheeks paler by the break of June:      
“To morrow will I bow to my delight,      
  “To-morrow will I ask my lady’s boon.”—      
“O may I never see another night,      
  “Lorenzo, if thy lips breathe not love’s tune.”—           30   
So spake they to their pillows; but, alas,      
Honeyless days and days did he let pass;      
   
V.

Until sweet Isabella’s untouch’d cheek      
  Fell sick within the rose’s just domain,      
Fell thin as a young mother’s, who doth seek           35   
  By every lull to cool her infant’s pain:      
“How ill she is,” said he, “I may not speak,      
  “And yet I will, and tell my love all plain:      
“If looks speak love-laws, I will drink her tears,      
“And at the least ’twill startle off her cares.”           40   
   
VI.

So said he one fair morning, and all day      
  His heart beat awfully against his side;      
And to his heart he inwardly did pray      
  For power to speak; but still the ruddy tide      
Stifled his voice, and puls’d resolve away—           45   
  Fever’d his high conceit of such a bride,      
Yet brought him to the meekness of a child:      
Alas! when passion is both meek and wild!      
   
VII.

So once more he had wak’d and anguished      
  A dreary night of love and misery,           50   
If Isabel’s quick eye had not been wed      
  To every symbol on his forehead high;      
She saw it waxing very pale and dead,      
  And straight all flush’d; so, lisped tenderly,      
“Lorenzo!”—here she ceas’d her timid quest,           55   
But in her tone and look he read the rest.      
   
VIII.

“O Isabella, I can half perceive      
  “That I may speak my grief into thine ear;      
“If thou didst ever any thing believe,      
  “Believe how I love thee, believe how near           60   
“My soul is to its doom: I would not grieve      
  “Thy hand by unwelcome pressing, would not fear      
“Thine eyes by gazing; but I cannot live      
“Another night, and not my passion shrive.      
   
IX.

“Love! thou art leading me from wintry cold,           65   
  “Lady! thou leadest me to summer clime,      
“And I must taste the blossoms that unfold      
  “In its ripe warmth this gracious morning time.”      
So said, his erewhile timid lips grew bold,      
  And poesied with hers in dewy rhyme:           70   
Great bliss was with them, and great happiness      
Grew, like a lusty flower in June’s caress.      
   
X.

Parting they seem’d to tread upon the air,      
  Twin roses by the zephyr blown apart      
Only to meet again more close, and share           75   
  The inward fragrance of each other’s heart.      
She, to her chamber gone, a ditty fair      
  Sang, of delicious love and honey’d dart;      
He with light steps went up a western hill,      
And bade the sun farewell, and joy’d his fill.           80   
   
XI.

All close they met again, before the dusk      
  Had taken from the stars its pleasant veil,      
All close they met, all eves, before the dusk      
  Had taken from the stars its pleasant veil,      
Close in a bower of hyacinth and musk,           85   
  Unknown of any, free from whispering tale.      
Ah! better had it been for ever so,      
Than idle ears should pleasure in their woe.      
   
XII.

Were they unhappy then?—It cannot be—      
  Too many tears for lovers have been shed,           90   
Too many sighs give we to them in fee,      
  Too much of pity after they are dead,      
Too many doleful stories do we see,      
  Whose matter in bright gold were best be read;      
Except in such a page where Theseus’ spouse           95   
Over the pathless waves towards him bows.      
   
XIII.

But, for the general award of love,      
  The little sweet doth kill much bitterness;      
Though Dido silent is in under-grove,      
  And Isabella’s was a great distress,           100   
Though young Lorenzo in warm Indian clove      
  Was not embalm’d, this truth is not the less—      
Even bees, the little almsmen of spring-bowers,      
Know there is richest juice in poison-flowers.      
   
XIV.

With her two brothers this fair lady dwelt,           105   
  Enriched from ancestral merchandize,      
And for them many a weary hand did swelt      
  In torched mines and noisy factories,      
And many once proud-quiver’d loins did melt      
  In blood from stinging whip;—with hollow eyes           110   
Many all day in dazzling river stood,      
To take the rich-ored driftings of the flood.      
   
XV.

For them the Ceylon diver held his breath,      
  And went all naked to the hungry shark;      
For them his ears gush’d blood; for them in death           115   
  The seal on the cold ice with piteous bark      
Lay full of darts; for them alone did seethe      
  A thousand men in troubles wide and dark:      
Half-ignorant, they turn’d an easy wheel,      
That set sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel.           120   
   
XVI.

Why were they proud? Because their marble founts      
  Gush’d with more pride than do a wretch’s tears?—      
Why were they proud? Because fair orange-mounts      
  Were of more soft ascent than lazar stairs?—      
Why were they proud? Because red-lin’d accounts           125   
  Were richer than the songs of Grecian years?—      
Why were they proud? again we ask aloud,      
Why in the name of Glory were they proud?      
   
XVII.

Yet were these Florentines as self-retired      
  In hungry pride and gainful cowardice,           130   
As two close Hebrews in that land inspired,      
  Paled in and vineyarded from beggar-spies,      
The hawks of ship-mast forests—the untired      
  And pannier’d mules for ducats and old lies—      
Quick cat’s-paws on the generous stray-away,—           135   
Great wits in Spanish, Tuscan, and Malay.      
   
XVIII.

How was it these same ledger-men could spy      
  Fair Isabella in her downy nest?      
How could they find out in Lorenzo’s eye      
  A straying from his toil? Hot Egypt’s pest           140   
Into their vision covetous and sly!      
  How could these money-bags see east and west?—      
Yet so they did—and every dealer fair      
Must see behind, as doth the hunted hare.      
   
XIX.

O eloquent and famed Boccaccio!           145   
  Of thee we now should ask forgiving boon,      
And of thy spicy myrtles as they blow,      
  And of thy roses amorous of the moon,      
And of thy lilies, that do paler grow      
  Now they can no more hear thy ghittern’s tune,           150   
For venturing syllables that ill beseem      
The quiet glooms of such a piteous theme.      
   
XX.

Grant thou a pardon here, and then the tale      
  Shall move on soberly, as it is meet;      
There is no other crime, no mad assail           155   
  To make old prose in modern rhyme more sweet:      
But it is done—succeed the verse or fail—      
  To honour thee, and thy gone spirit greet;      
To stead thee as a verse in English tongue,      
An echo of thee in the north-wind sung.           160   
   
XXI.

These brethren having found by many signs      
  What love Lorenzo for their sister had,      
And how she lov’d him too, each unconfines      
  His bitter thoughts to other, well nigh mad      
That he, the servant of their trade designs,           165   
  Should in their sister’s love be blithe and glad,      
When ’twas their plan to coax her by degrees      
To some high noble and his olive-trees.      
   
XXII.

And many a jealous conference had they,      
  And many times they bit their lips alone,           170   
Before they fix’d upon a surest way      
  To make the youngster for his crime atone;      
And at the last, these men of cruel clay      
  Cut Mercy with a sharp knife to the bone;      
For they resolved in some forest dim           175   
To kill Lorenzo, and there bury him.      
   
XXIII.

So on a pleasant morning, as he leant      
  Into the sun-rise, o’er the balustrade      
Of the garden-terrace, towards him they bent      
  Their footing through the dews; and to him said,           180   
“You seem there in the quiet of content,      
  “Lorenzo, and we are most loth to invade      
“Calm speculation; but if you are wise,      
“Bestride your steed while cold is in the skies.      
   
XXIV.

“To-day we purpose, ay, this hour we mount           185   
  “To spur three leagues towards the Apennine;      
“Come down, we pray thee, ere the hot sun count      
  “His dewy rosary on the eglantine.”      
Lorenzo, courteously as he was wont,      
  Bow’d a fair greeting to these serpents’ whine;           190   
And went in haste, to get in readiness,      
With belt, and spur, and bracing huntsman’s dress.      
   
XXV.

And as he to the court-yard pass’d along,      
  Each third step did he pause, and listen’d oft      
If he could hear his lady’s matin-song,           195   
  Or the light whisper of her footstep soft;      
And as he thus over his passion hung,      
  He heard a laugh full musical aloft;      
When, looking up, he saw her features bright      
Smile through an in-door lattice, all delight.           200   
   
XXVI.

“Love, Isabel!” said he, “I was in pain      
  “Lest I should miss to bid thee a good morrow:      
“Ah! what if I should lose thee, when so fain      
  “I am to stifle all the heavy sorrow      
“Of a poor three hours’ absence? but we’ll gain           205   
  “Out of the amorous dark what day doth borrow.      
“Good bye! I’ll soon be back.”—“Good bye!” said she:—      
And as he went she chanted merrily.      
   
XXVII.

So the two brothers and their murder’d man      
  Rode past fair Florence, to where Arno’s stream           210   
Gurgles through straiten’d banks, and still doth fan      
  Itself with dancing bulrush, and the bream      
Keeps head against the freshets. Sick and wan      
  The brothers’ faces in the ford did seem,      
Lorenzo’s flush with love.—They pass’d the water           215   
Into a forest quiet for the slaughter.      
   
XXVIII.

There was Lorenzo slain and buried in,      
  There in that forest did his great love cease;      
Ah! when a soul doth thus its freedom win,      
  It aches in loneliness—is ill at peace           220   
As the break-covert blood-hounds of such sin:      
  They dipp’d their swords in the water, and did tease      
Their horses homeward, with convulsed spur,      
Each richer by his being a murderer.      
   
XXIX.

They told their sister how, with sudden speed,           225   
  Lorenzo had ta’en ship for foreign lands,      
Because of some great urgency and need      
  In their affairs, requiring trusty hands.      
Poor Girl! put on thy stifling widow’s weed,      
  And ’scape at once from Hope’s accursed bands;           230   
To-day thou wilt not see him, nor to-morrow,      
And the next day will be a day of sorrow.      
   
XXX.

She weeps alone for pleasures not to be;      
  Sorely she wept until the night came on,      
And then, instead of love, O misery!           235   
  She brooded o’er the luxury alone:      
His image in the dusk she seem’d to see,      
  And to the silence made a gentle moan,      
Spreading her perfect arms upon the air,      
And on her couch low murmuring, “Where? O where?”           240   
   
XXXI.

But Selfishness, Love’s cousin, held not long      
  Its fiery vigil in her single breast;      
She fretted for the golden hour, and hung      
  Upon the time with feverish unrest—      
Not long—for soon into her heart a throng           245   
  Of higher occupants, a richer zest,      
Came tragic; passion not to be subdued,      
And sorrow for her love in travels rude.      
   
XXXII.

In the mid days of autumn, on their eves      
  The breath of Winter comes from far away,           250   
And the sick west continually bereaves      
  Of some gold tinge, and plays a roundelay      
Of death among the bushes and the leaves,      
  To make all bare before he dares to stray      
From his north cavern. So sweet Isabel           255   
By gradual decay from beauty fell,      
   
XXXIII.

Because Lorenzo came not. Oftentimes      
  She ask’d her brothers, with an eye all pale,      
Striving to be itself, what dungeon climes      
  Could keep him off so long? They spake a tale           260   
Time after time, to quiet her. Their crimes      
  Came on them, like a smoke from Hinnom’s vale;      
And every night in dreams they groan’d aloud,      
To see their sister in her snowy shroud.      
   
XXXIV.

And she had died in drowsy ignorance,           265   
  But for a thing more deadly dark than all;      
It came like a fierce potion, drunk by chance,      
  Which saves a sick man from the feather’d pall      
For some few gasping moments; like a lance,      
  Waking an Indian from his cloudy hall           270   
With cruel pierce, and bringing him again      
Sense of the gnawing fire at heart and brain.      
   
XXXV.

It was a vision.—In the drowsy gloom,      
  The dull of midnight, at her couch’s foot      
Lorenzo stood, and wept: the forest tomb           275   
  Had marr’d his glossy hair which once could shoot      
Lustre into the sun, and put cold doom      
  Upon his lips, and taken the soft lute      
From his lorn voice, and past his loamed ears      
Had made a miry channel for his tears.           280   
   
XXXVI.

Strange sound it was, when the pale shadow spake;      
  For there was striving, in its piteous tongue,      
To speak as when on earth it was awake,      
  And Isabella on its music hung:      
Languor there was in it, and tremulous shake,           285   
  As in a palsied Druid’s harp unstrung;      
And through it moan’d a ghostly under-song,      
Like hoarse night-gusts sepulchral briars among.      
   
XXXVII.

Its eyes, though wild, were still all dewy bright      
  With love, and kept all phantom fear aloof           290   
From the poor girl by magic of their light,      
  The while it did unthread the horrid woof      
Of the late darken’d time,—the murderous spite      
  Of pride and avarice,—the dark pine roof      
In the forest,—and the sodden turfed dell,           295   
Where, without any word, from stabs he fell.      
   
XXXVIII.

Saying moreover, “Isabel, my sweet!      
  “Red whortle-berries droop above my head,      
“And a large flint-stone weighs upon my feet;      
  “Around me beeches and high chestnuts shed           300   
“Their leaves and prickly nuts; a sheep-fold bleat      
  “Comes from beyond the river to my bed:      
“Go, shed one tear upon my heather-bloom,      
“And it shall comfort me within the tomb.      
   
XXXIX.

“I am a shadow now, alas! alas!           305   
  “Upon the skirts of human-nature dwelling      
“Alone: I chant alone the holy mass,      
  “While little sounds of life are round me knelling,      
“And glossy bees at noon do fieldward pass,      
  “And many a chapel bell the hour is telling,           310   
“Paining me through: those sounds grow strange to me,      
“And thou art distant in Humanity.      
   
XL.

“I know what was, I feel full well what is,      
  “And I should rage, if spirits could go mad;      
“Though I forget the taste of earthly bliss,           315   
  “That paleness warms my grave, as though I had      
“A Seraph chosen from the bright abyss      
  “To be my spouse: thy paleness makes me glad;      
“Thy beauty grows upon me, and I feel      
“A greater love through all my essence steal.”           320   
   
XLI.

The Spirit mourn’d “Adieu!”—dissolv’d, and left      
  The atom darkness in a slow turmoil;      
As when of healthful midnight sleep bereft,      
  Thinking on rugged hours and fruitless toil,      
We put our eyes into a pillowy cleft,           325   
  And see the spangly gloom froth up and boil:      
It made sad Isabella’s eyelids ache,      
And in the dawn she started up awake;      
   
XLII.

“Ha! ha!” said she, “I knew not this hard life,      
  “I thought the worst was simple misery;           330   
“I thought some Fate with pleasure or with strife      
  “Portion’d us—happy days, or else to die;      
“But there is crime—a brother’s bloody knife!      
  “Sweet Spirit, thou hast school’d my infancy:      
“I’ll visit thee for this, and kiss thine eyes,           335   
“And greet thee morn and even in the skies.”      
   
XLIII.

When the full morning came, she had devised      
  How she might secret to the forest hie;      
How she might find the clay, so dearly prized,      
  And sing to it one latest lullaby;           340   
How her short absence might be unsurmised,      
  While she the inmost of the dream would try.      
Resolv’d, she took with her an aged nurse,      
And went into that dismal forest-hearse.      
   
XLIV.

See, as they creep along the river side,           345   
  How she doth whisper to that aged Dame,      
And, after looking round the champaign wide,      
  Shows her a knife.—“What feverous hectic flame      
“Burns in thee, child?—What good can thee betide,      
  “That thou should’st smile again?”—The evening came,           350   
And they had found Lorenzo’s earthy bed;      
The flint was there, the berries at his head.      
   
XLV.

Who hath not loiter’d in a green church-yard,      
  And let his spirit, like a demon-mole,      
Work through the clayey soil and gravel hard,           355   
  To see skull, coffin’d bones, and funeral stole;      
Pitying each form that hungry Death hath marr’d,      
  And filling it once more with human soul?      
Ah! this is holiday to what was felt      
When Isabella by Lorenzo knelt.           360   
   
XLVI.

She gaz’d into the fresh-thrown mould, as though      
  One glance did fully all its secrets tell;      
Clearly she saw, as other eyes would know      
  Pale limbs at bottom of a crystal well;      
Upon the murderous spot she seem’d to grow,           365   
  Like to a native lily of the dell:      
Then with her knife, all sudden, she began      
To dig more fervently than misers can.      
   
XLVII.

Soon she turn’d up a soiled glove, whereon      
  Her silk had play’d in purple phantasies,           370   
She kiss’d it with a lip more chill than stone,      
  And put it in her bosom, where it dries      
And freezes utterly unto the bone      
  Those dainties made to still an infant’s cries:      
Then ’gan she work again; nor stay’d her care,           375   
But to throw back at times her veiling hair.      
   
XLVIII.

That old nurse stood beside her wondering,      
  Until her heart felt pity to the core      
At sight of such a dismal labouring,      
  And so she kneeled, with her locks all hoar,           380   
And put her lean hands to the horrid thing:      
  Three hours they labour’d at this travail sore;      
At last they felt the kernel of the grave,      
And Isabella did not stamp and rave.      
   
XLIX.

Ah! wherefore all this wormy circumstance?           385   
  Why linger at the yawning tomb so long?      
O for the gentleness of old Romance,      
  The simple plaining of a minstrel’s song!      
Fair reader, at the old tale take a glance,      
  For here, in truth, it doth not well belong           390   
To speak:—O turn thee to the very tale,      
And taste the music of that vision pale.      
   
L.

With duller steel than the Persèan sword      
  They cut away no formless monster’s head,      
But one, whose gentleness did well accord           395   
  With death, as life. The ancient harps have said,      
Love never dies, but lives, immortal Lord:      
  If Love impersonate was ever dead,      
Pale Isabella kiss’d it, and low moan’d.      
’Twas love; cold,—dead indeed, but not dethroned.           400   
   
LI.

In anxious secrecy they took it home,      
  And then the prize was all for Isabel:      
She calm’d its wild hair with a golden comb,      
  And all around each eye’s sepulchral cell      
Pointed each fringed lash; the smeared loam           405   
  With tears, as chilly as a dripping well,      
She drench’d away:—and still she comb’d, and kept      
Sighing all day—and still she kiss’d, and wept.      
   
LII.

Then in a silken scarf,—sweet with the dews      
  Of precious flowers pluck’d in Araby,           410   
And divine liquids come with odorous ooze      
  Through the cold serpent pipe refreshfully,—      
She wrapp’d it up; and for its tomb did choose      
  A garden-pot, wherein she laid it by,      
And cover’d it with mould, and o’er it set           415   
Sweet Basil, which her tears kept ever wet.      
   
LIII.

And she forgot the stars, the moon, and sun,      
  And she forgot the blue above the trees,      
And she forgot the dells where waters run,      
  And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze;           420   
She had no knowledge when the day was done,      
  And the new morn she saw not: but in peace      
Hung over her sweet Basil evermore,      
And moisten’d it with tears unto the core.      
   
LIV.

And so she ever fed it with thin tears,           425   
  Whence thick, and green, and beautiful it grew,      
So that it smelt more balmy than its peers      
  Of Basil-tufts in Florence; for it drew      
Nurture besides, and life, from human fears,      
  From the fast mouldering head there shut from view:           430   
So that the jewel, safely casketed,      
Came forth, and in perfumed leafits spread.      
   
LV.

O Melancholy, linger here awhile!      
  O Music, Music, breathe despondingly!      
O Echo, Echo, from some sombre isle,           435   
  Unknown, Lethean, sigh to us—O sigh!      
Spirits in grief, lift up your heads, and smile;      
  Lift up your heads, sweet Spirits, heavily,      
And make a pale light in your cypress glooms,      
Tinting with silver wan your marble tombs.           440   
   
LVI.

Moan hither, all ye syllables of woe,      
  From the deep throat of sad Melpomene!      
Through bronzed lyre in tragic order go,      
  And touch the strings into a mystery;      
Sound mournfully upon the winds and low;           445   
  For simple Isabel is soon to be      
Among the dead: She withers, like a palm      
Cut by an Indian for its juicy balm.      
   
LVII.

O leave the palm to wither by itself;      
  Let not quick Winter chill its dying hour!—           450   
It may not be—those Baalites of pelf,      
  Her brethren, noted the continual shower      
From her dead eyes; and many a curious elf,      
  Among her kindred, wonder’d that such dower      
Of youth and beauty should be thrown aside           455   
By one mark’d out to be a Noble’s bride.      
   
LVIII.

And, furthermore, her brethren wonder’d much      
  Why she sat drooping by the Basil green,      
And why it flourish’d, as by magic touch;      
  Greatly they wonder’d what the thing might mean:           460   
They could not surely give belief, that such      
  A very nothing would have power to wean      
Her from her own fair youth, and pleasures gay,      
And even remembrance of her love’s delay.      
   
LIX.

Therefore they watch’d a time when they might sift           465   
  This hidden whim; and long they watch’d in vain;      
For seldom did she go to chapel-shrift,      
  And seldom felt she any hunger-pain;      
And when she left, she hurried back, as swift      
  As bird on wing to breast its eggs again;           470   
And, patient as a hen-bird, sat her there      
Beside her Basil, weeping through her hair.      
   
LX.

Yet they contriv’d to steal the Basil-pot,      
  And to examine it in secret place:      
The thing was vile with green and livid spot,           475   
  And yet they knew it was Lorenzo’s face:      
The guerdon of their murder they had got,      
  And so left Florence in a moment’s space,      
Never to turn again.—Away they went,      
With blood upon their heads, to banishment.           480   
   
LXI.

O Melancholy, turn thine eyes away!      
  O Music, Music, breathe despondingly!      
O Echo, Echo, on some other day,      
  From isles Lethean, sigh to us—O sigh!      
Spirits of grief, sing not your “Well-a-way!”           485   
  For Isabel, sweet Isabel, will die;      
Will die a death too lone and incomplete,      
Now they have ta’en away her Basil sweet.      
   
LXII.

Piteous she look’d on dead and senseless things,      
  Asking for her lost Basil amorously:           490   
And with melodious chuckle in the strings      
  Of her lorn voice, she oftentimes would cry      
After the Pilgrim in his wanderings,      
  To ask him where her Basil was; and why      
’Twas hid from her: “For cruel ’tis,” said she,           495   
“To steal my Basil-pot away from me.”      
   
LXIII.

And so she pined, and so she died forlorn,      
  Imploring for her Basil to the last.      
No heart was there in Florence but did mourn      
  In pity of her love, so overcast.           500   
And a sad ditty of this story born      
  From mouth to mouth through all the country pass’d:      
Still is the burthen sung—“O cruelty,      
  “To steal my Basil-pot away from me!”

 The Eve of St. Agnes   
   
   
I.

  ST. AGNES’ Eve—Ah, bitter chill it was!      
  The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;      
  The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass,      
  And silent was the flock in woolly fold:      
  Numb were the Beadsman’s fingers, while he told           5   
  His rosary, and while his frosted breath,      
  Like pious incense from a censer old,      
  Seem’d taking flight for heaven, without a death,      
Past the sweet Virgin’s picture, while his prayer he saith.      
   
II.

  His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man;           10   
  Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees,      
  And back returneth, meagre, barefoot, wan,      
  Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees:      
  The sculptur’d dead, on each side, seem to freeze,      
  Emprison’d in black, purgatorial rails:           15   
  Knights, ladies, praying in dumb orat’ries,      
  He passeth by; and his weak spirit fails      
To think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails.      
   
III.

  Northward he turneth through a little door,      
  And scarce three steps, ere Music’s golden tongue           20   
  Flatter’d to tears this aged man and poor;      
  But no—already had his deathbell rung;      
  The joys of all his life were said and sung:      
  His was harsh penance on St. Agnes’ Eve:      
  Another way he went, and soon among           25   
  Rough ashes sat he for his soul’s reprieve,      
And all night kept awake, for sinners’ sake to grieve.      
   
IV.

  That ancient Beadsman heard the prelude soft;      
  And so it chanc’d, for many a door was wide,      
  From hurry to and fro. Soon, up aloft,           30   
  The silver, snarling trumpets ’gan to chide:      
  The level chambers, ready with their pride,      
  Were glowing to receive a thousand guests:      
  The carved angels, ever eager-eyed,      
  Star’d, where upon their heads the cornice rests,           35   
With hair blown back, and wings put cross-wise on their breasts.      
   
V.

  At length burst in the argent revelry,      
  With plume, tiara, and all rich array,      
  Numerous as shadows haunting fairily      
  The brain, new stuff d, in youth, with triumphs gay           40   
  Of old romance. These let us wish away,      
  And turn, sole-thoughted, to one Lady there,      
  Whose heart had brooded, all that wintry day,      
  On love, and wing’d St. Agnes’ saintly care,      
As she had heard old dames full many times declare.           45   
   
VI.

  They told her how, upon St. Agnes’ Eve,      
  Young virgins might have visions of delight,      
  And soft adorings from their loves receive      
  Upon the honey’d middle of the night,      
  If ceremonies due they did aright;           50   
  As, supperless to bed they must retire,      
  And couch supine their beauties, lily white;      
  Nor look behind, nor sideways, but require      
Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire.      
   
VII.

  Full of this whim was thoughtful Madeline:           55   
  The music, yearning like a God in pain,      
  She scarcely heard: her maiden eyes divine,      
  Fix’d on the floor, saw many a sweeping train      
  Pass by—she heeded not at all: in vain      
  Came many a tiptoe, amorous cavalier,           60   
  And back retir’d; not cool’d by high disdain,      
  But she saw not: her heart was otherwhere:      
She sigh’d for Agnes’ dreams, the sweetest of the year.      
   
VIII.

  She danc’d along with vague, regardless eyes,      
  Anxious her lips, her breathing quick and short:           65   
  The hallow’d hour was near at hand: she sighs      
  Amid the timbrels, and the throng’d resort      
  Of whisperers in anger, or in sport;      
  ’Mid looks of love, defiance, hate, and scorn,      
  Hoodwink’d with faery fancy; all amort,           70   
  Save to St. Agnes and her lambs unshorn,      
And all the bliss to be before to-morrow morn.      
   
IX.

  So, purposing each moment to retire,      
  She linger’d still. Meantime, across the moors,      
  Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fire           75   
  For Madeline. Beside the portal doors,      
  Buttress’d from moonlight, stands he, and implores      
  All saints to give him sight of Madeline,      
  But for one moment in the tedious hours,      
  That he might gaze and worship all unseen;           80   
Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss—in sooth such things have been.      
   
X.

  He ventures in: let no buzz’d whisper tell:      
  All eyes be muffled, or a hundred swords      
  Will storm his heart, Love’s fev’rous citadel:      
  For him, those chambers held barbarian hordes,           85   
  Hyena foemen, and hot-blooded lords,      
  Whose very dogs would execrations howl      
  Against his lineage: not one breast affords      
  Him any mercy, in that mansion foul,      
Save one old beldame, weak in body and in soul.           90   
   
XI.

  Ah, happy chance! the aged creature came,      
  Shuffling along with ivory-headed wand,      
  To where he stood, hid from the torch’s flame,      
  Behind a broad hail-pillar, far beyond      
  The sound of merriment and chorus bland:           95   
  He startled her; but soon she knew his face,      
  And grasp’d his fingers in her palsied hand,      
  Saying, “Mercy, Porphyro! hie thee from this place;      
“They are all here to-night, the whole blood-thirsty race!      
   
XII.

  “Get hence! get hence! there’s dwarfish Hildebrand;           100   
  “He had a fever late, and in the fit      
  “He cursed thee and thine, both house and land:      
  “Then there ’s that old Lord Maurice, not a whit      
  “More tame for his gray hairs—Alas me! flit!      
  “Flit like a ghost away.”—“Ah, Gossip dear,           105   
  “We’re safe enough; here in this arm-chair sit,      
  “And tell me how”—“Good Saints! not here, not here;      
“Follow me, child, or else these stones will be thy bier.”      
   
XIII.

  He follow’d through a lowly arched way,      
  Brushing the cobwebs with his lofty plume;           110   
  And as she mutter’d “Well-a—well-a-day!”      
  He found him in a little moonlight room,      
  Pale, lattic’d, chill, and silent as a tomb.      
  “Now tell me where is Madeline,” said he,      
  “O tell me, Angela, by the holy loom           115   
  “Which none but secret sisterhood may see,      
“When they St. Agnes’ wool are weaving piously.”      
   
XIV.

  “St. Agnes! Ah! it is St. Agnes’ Eve—      
  “Yet men will murder upon holy days:      
  “Thou must hold water in a witch’s sieve,           120   
  “And be liege-lord of all the Elves and Fays,      
  “To venture so: it fills me with amaze      
  “To see thee, Porphyro!—St. Agnes’ Eve!      
  “God’s help! my lady fair the conjuror plays      
  “This very night: good angels her deceive!           125   
“But let me laugh awhile, I’ve mickle time to grieve.”      
   
XV.

  Feebly she laugheth in the languid moon,      
  While Porphyro upon her face doth look,      
  Like puzzled urchin on an aged crone      
  Who keepeth clos’d a wond’rous riddle-book,           130   
  As spectacled she sits in chimney nook.      
  But soon his eyes grew brilliant, when she told      
  His lady’s purpose; and he scarce could brook      
  Tears, at the thought of those enchantments cold,      
And Madeline asleep in lap of legends old.           135   
   
XVI.

  Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose,      
  Flushing his brow, and in his pained heart      
  Made purple riot: then doth he propose      
  A stratagem, that makes the beldame start:      
  “A cruel man and impious thou art:           140   
  “Sweet lady, let her pray, and sleep, and dream      
  “Alone with her good angels, far apart      
  “From wicked men like thee. Go, go!—I deem      
“Thou canst not surely be the same that thou didst seem.      
   
XVII.

  “I will not harm her, by all saints I swear,”           145   
  Quoth Porphyro: “O may I ne’er find grace      
  “When my weak voice shall whisper its last prayer,      
  “If one of her soft ringlets I displace,      
  “Or look with ruffian passion in her face:      
  “Good Angela, believe me by these tears;           150   
  “Or I will, even in a moment’s space,      
  “Awake, with horrid shout, my foemen’s ears,      
“And beard them, though they be more fang’d than wolves and bears.”      
   
XVIII.

  “Ah! why wilt thou affright a feeble soul?      
  “A poor, weak, palsy-stricken, churchyard thing,           155   
  “Whose passing-bell may ere the midnight toll;      
  “Whose prayers for thee, each morn and evening,      
  “Were never miss’d.”—Thus plaining, doth she bring      
  A gentler speech from burning Porphyro;      
  So woful, and of such deep sorrowing,           160   
  That Angela gives promise she will do      
Whatever he shall wish, betide her weal or woe.      
   
XIX.

  Which was, to lead him, in close secrecy,      
  Even to Madeline’s chamber, and there hide      
  Him in a closet, of such privacy           165   
  That he might see her beauty unespied,      
  And win perhaps that night a peerless bride,      
  While legion’d fairies pac’d the coverlet,      
  And pale enchantment held her sleepy-eyed.      
  Never on such a night have lovers met,           170   
Since Merlin paid his Demon all the monstrous debt.      
   
XX.

  “It shall be as thou wishest,” said the Dame:      
  “All cates and dainties shall be stored there      
  “Quickly on this feast-night: by the tambour frame      
  “Her own lute thou wilt see: no time to spare,           175   
  “For I am slow and feeble, and scarce dare      
  “On such a catering trust my dizzy head.      
  “Wait here, my child, with patience; kneel in prayer      
  “The while: Ah! thou must needs the lady wed,      
“Or may I never leave my grave among the dead.”           180   
   
XXI.

  So saying, she hobbled off with busy fear.      
  The lover’s endless minutes slowly pass’d;      
  The dame return’d, and whisper’d in his ear      
  To follow her; with aged eyes aghast      
  From fright of dim espial. Safe at last,           185   
  Through many a dusky gallery, they gain      
  The maiden’s chamber, silken, hush’d, and chaste;      
  Where Porphyro took covert, pleas’d amain.      
His poor guide hurried back with agues in her brain.      
   
XXII.

  Her falt’ring hand upon the balustrade,           190   
  Old Angela was feeling for the stair,      
  When Madeline, St. Agnes’ charmed maid,      
  Rose, like a mission’d spirit, unaware:      
  With silver taper’s light, and pious care,      
  She turn’d, and down the aged gossip led           195   
  To a safe level matting. Now prepare,      
  Young Porphyro, for gazing on that bed;      
She comes, she comes again, like ring-dove fray’d and fled.      
   
XXIII.

  Out went the taper as she hurried in;      
  Its little smoke, in pallid moonshine, died:           200   
  She clos’d the door, she panted, all akin      
  To spirits of the air, and visions wide:      
  No uttered syllable, or, woe betide!      
  But to her heart, her heart was voluble,      
  Paining with eloquence her balmy side;           205   
  As though a tongueless nightingale should swell      
Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell.      
   
XXIV.

  A casement high and triple-arch’d there was,      
  All garlanded with carven imag’ries      
  Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,           210   
  And diamonded with panes of quaint device,      
  Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,      
  As are the tiger-moth’s deep-damask’d wings;      
  And in the midst, ’mong thousand heraldries,      
  And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,           215   
A shielded scutcheon blush’d with blood of queens and kings.      
   
XXV.

  Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,      
  And threw warm gules on Madeline’s fair breast,      
  As down she knelt for heaven’s grace and boon;      
  Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,           220   
  And on her silver cross soft amethyst,      
  And on her hair a glory, like a saint:      
  She seem’d a splendid angel, newly drest,      
  Save wings, for heaven:—Porphyro grew faint:      
She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.           225   
   
XXVI.

  Anon his heart revives: her vespers done,      
  Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;      
  Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;      
  Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degrees      
  Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees:           230   
  Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed,      
  Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees,      
  In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed,      
But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled.      
   
XXVII.

  Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest,           235   
  In sort of wakeful swoon, perplex’d she lay,      
  Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppress’d      
  Her soothed limbs, and soul fatigued away;      
  Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day;      
  Blissfully haven’d both from joy and pain;           240   
  Clasp’d like a missal where swart Paynims pray;      
  Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain,      
As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again.      
   
XXVIII.

  Stol’n to this paradise, and so entranced,      
  Porphyro gazed upon her empty dress,           245   
  And listen’d to her breathing, if it chanced      
  To wake into a slumberous tenderness;      
  Which when he heard, that minute did he bless,      
  And breath’d himself: then from the closet crept,      
  Noiseless as fear in a wide wilderness,           250   
  And over the hush’d carpet, silent, stept,      
And ’tween the curtains peep’d, where, lo!—how fast she slept.      
   
XXIX.

  Then by the bed-side, where the faded moon      
  Made a dim, silver twilight, soft he set      
  A table, and, half anguish’d, threw thereon           255   
  A cloth of woven crimson, gold, and jet:—      
  O for some drowsy Morphean amulet!      
  The boisterous, midnight, festive clarion,      
  The kettle-drum, and far-heard clarionet,      
  Affray his ears, though but in dying tone:—           260   
The hall door shuts again, and all the noise is gone.      
   
XXX.

  And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep,      
  In blanched linen, smooth, and lavender’d,      
  While he from forth the closet brought a heap      
  Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd;           265   
  With jellies soother than the creamy curd,      
  And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon;      
  Manna and dates, in argosy transferr’d      
  From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one,      
From silken Samarcand to cedar’d Lebanon.           270   
   
XXXI.

  These delicates he heap’d with glowing hand      
  On golden dishes and in baskets bright      
  Of wreathed silver: sumptuous they stand      
  In the retired quiet of the night,      
  Filling the chilly room with perfume light.—           275   
  “And now, my love, my seraph fair, awake!      
  “Thou art my heaven, and I thine eremite:      
  “Open thine eyes, for meek St. Agnes’ sake,      
“Or I shall drowse beside thee, so my soul doth ache.”      
   
XXXII.

  Thus whispering, his warm, unnerved arm           280   
  Sank in her pillow. Shaded was her dream      
  By the dusk curtains:—’twas a midnight charm      
  Impossible to melt as iced stream:      
  The lustrous salvers in the moonlight gleam;      
  Broad golden fringe upon the carpet lies:           285   
  It seem’d he never, never could redeem      
  From such a stedfast spell his lady’s eyes;      
So mus’d awhile, entoil’d in woofed phantasies.      
   
XXXIII.

  Awakening up, he took her hollow lute,—      
  Tumultuous,—and, in chords that tenderest be,           290   
  He play’d an ancient ditty, long since mute,      
  In Provence call’d, “La belle dame sans mercy:”      
  Close to her ear touching the melody;—      
  Wherewith disturb’d, she utter’d a soft moan:      
  He ceased—she panted quick—and suddenly           295   
  Her blue affrayed eyes wide open shone:      
Upon his knees he sank, pale as smooth-sculptured stone.      
   
XXXIV.

  Her eyes were open, but she still beheld,      
  Now wide awake, the vision of her sleep:      
  There was a painful change, that nigh expell’d           300   
  The blisses of her dream so pure and deep      
  At which fair Madeline began to weep,      
  And moan forth witless words with many a sigh;      
  While still her gaze on Porphyro would keep;      
  Who knelt, with joined hands and piteous eye,           305   
Fearing to move or speak, she look’d so dreamingly.      
   
XXXV.

  “Ah, Porphyro!” said she, “but even now      
  “Thy voice was at sweet tremble in mine ear,      
  “Made tuneable with every sweetest vow;      
  “And those sad eyes were spiritual and clear:           310   
  “How chang’d thou art! how pallid, chill, and drear!      
  “Give me that voice again, my Porphyro,      
  “Those looks immortal, those complainings dear!      
  “Oh leave me not in this eternal woe,      
“For if thou diest, my Love, I know not where to go.”           315   
   
XXXVI.

  Beyond a mortal man impassion’d far      
  At these voluptuous accents, he arose,      
  Ethereal, flush’d, and like a throbbing star      
  Seen mid the sapphire heaven’s deep repose;      
  Into her dream he melted, as the rose           320   
  Blendeth its odour with the violet,—      
  Solution sweet: meantime the frost-wind blows      
  Like Love’s alarum pattering the sharp sleet      
Against the window-panes; St. Agnes’ moon hath set.      
   
XXXVII.

  ’Tis dark: quick pattereth the flaw-blown sleet:           325   
  “This is no dream, my bride, my Madeline!”      
  ’Tis dark: the iced gusts still rave and beat:      
  “No dream, alas! alas! and woe is mine!      
  “Porphyro will leave me here to fade and pine.—      
  “Cruel! what traitor could thee hither bring?           330   
  “I curse not, for my heart is lost in thine,      
  “Though thou forsakest a deceived thing;—      
“A dove forlorn and lost with sick unpruned wing.”      
   
XXXVIII.

  “My Madeline! sweet dreamer! lovely bride!      
  “Say, may I be for aye thy vassal blest?           335   
  “Thy beauty’s shield, heart-shap’d and vermeil dyed?      
  “Ah, silver shrine, here will I take my rest      
  “After so many hours of toil and quest,      
  “A famish’d pilgrim,—saved by miracle.      
  “Though I have found, I will not rob thy nest           340   
  “Saving of thy sweet self; if thou think’st well      
“To trust, fair Madeline, to no rude infidel.”      
   
XXXIX.

  ’Hark! ’tis an elfin-storm from faery land,      
  “Of haggard seeming, but a boon indeed:      
  “Arise—arise! the morning is at hand;—           345   
  “The bloated wassaillers will never heed:—      
  “Let us away, my love, with happy speed;      
  “There are no ears to hear, or eyes to see,—      
  “Drown’d all in Rhenish and the sleepy mead:      
  “Awake! arise! my love, and fearless be,           350   
“For o’er the southern moors I have a home for thee.”      
   
XL.

  She hurried at his words, beset with fears,      
  For there were sleeping dragons all around,      
  At glaring watch, perhaps, with ready spears—      
  Down the wide stairs a darkling way they found.—           355   
  In all the house was heard no human sound.      
  A chain-droop’d lamp was flickering by each door;      
  The arras, rich with horseman, hawk, and hound,      
  Flutter’d in the besieging wind’s uproar;      
And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor.           360   
   
XLI.

  They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall;      
  Like phantoms, to the iron porch, they glide;      
  Where lay the Porter, in uneasy sprawl,      
  With a huge empty flaggon by his side;      
  The wakeful bloodhound rose, and shook his hide,           365   
  But his sagacious eye an inmate owns:      
  By one, and one, the bolts full easy slide:—      
  The chains lie silent on the footworn stones;—      
The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groan.      
   
XLII.

  And they are gone: ay, ages long ago           370   
  These lovers fled away into the storm.      
  That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe,      
  And all his warrior-guests, with shade and form      
  Of witch, and demon, and large coffin-worm,      
  Were long be-nightmar’d. Angela the old           375   
  Died palsy-twitch’d, with meagre face deform;      
  The Beadsman, after thousand aves told,      
For aye unsought for slept among his ashes cold.

Ode to a Nightingale   
   
   
1.

MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains      
  My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,      
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains      
  One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:      
’Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,           5   
  But being too happy in thine happiness,—      
    That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,      
          In some melodious plot      
  Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,      
    Singest of summer in full-throated ease.           10   
   
2.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been      
  Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,      
Tasting of Flora and the country green,      
  Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth!      
O for a beaker full of the warm South,           15   
  Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,      
    With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,      
          And purple-stained mouth;      
  That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,      
    And with thee fade away into the forest dim:           20   
   
3.

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget      
  What thou among the leaves hast never known,      
The weariness, the fever, and the fret      
  Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;      
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,           25   
  Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;      
    Where but to think is to be full of sorrow      
          And leaden-eyed despairs,      
  Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,      
    Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.           30   
   
4.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,      
  Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,      
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,      
  Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:      
Already with thee! tender is the night,           35   
  And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,      
    Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays;      
          But here there is no light,      
  Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown      
    Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.           40   
   
5.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,      
  Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,      
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet      
  Wherewith the seasonable month endows      
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;           45   
  White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;      
    Fast fading violets cover’d up in leaves;      
          And mid-May’s eldest child,      
  The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,      
    The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.           50   
   
6.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time      
  I have been half in love with easeful Death,      
Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,      
  To take into the air my quiet breath;      
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,           55   
  To cease upon the midnight with no pain,      
    While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad      
          In such an ecstasy!      
  Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—      
    To thy high requiem become a sod.           60   
   
7.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!      
  No hungry generations tread thee down;      
The voice I hear this passing night was heard      
  In ancient days by emperor and clown:      
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path           65   
  Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,      
    She stood in tears amid the alien corn;      
          The same that oft-times hath      
  Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam      
    Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.           70   
   
8.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell      
  To toil me back from thee to my sole self!      
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well      
  As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf.      
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades           75   
  Past the near meadows, over the still stream,      
    Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep      
          In the next valley-glades:      
  Was it a vision, or a waking dream?      
    Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?           80   

Ode on a Grecian Urn   
   
   
1.

THOU still unravish’d bride of quietness,      
  Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,      
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express      
  A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:      
What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape           5   
  Of deities or mortals, or of both,      
    In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?      
  What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?      
  What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?      
    What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?           10   
   
2.

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard      
  Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;      
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,      
  Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:      
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave           15   
  Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;      
    Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,      
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;      
  She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,      
    For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!           20   
   
3.

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed      
  Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;      
And, happy melodist, unwearied,      
  For ever piping songs for ever new;      
More happy love! more happy, happy love!           25   
  For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,      
    For ever panting, and for ever young;      
All breathing human passion far above,      
  That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,      
    A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.           30   
   
4.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?      
  To what green altar, O mysterious priest,      
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,      
  And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?      
What little town by river or sea shore,           35   
  Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,      
    Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?      
And, little town, thy streets for evermore      
  Will silent be; and not a soul to tell      
    Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.           40   
   
5.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede      
  Of marble men and maidens overwrought,      
With forest branches and the trodden weed;      
  Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought      
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!           45   
  When old age shall this generation waste,      
    Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe      
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,      
  “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all      
    Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.           50   

 Ode to Psyche   
   
   
O goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung      
  By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,      
And pardon that thy secrets should be sung      
  Even into thine own soft-conched ear:      
Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see           5   
  The winged Psyche with awaken’d eyes?      
I wander’d in a forest thoughtlessly,      
  And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise,      
Saw two fair creatures, couched side by side      
  In deepest grass, beneath the whisp’ring roof           10   
  Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran      
        A brooklet, scarce espied:      
’Mid hush’d, cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed,      
  Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian,      
They lay calm-breathing on the bedded grass;           15   
  Their arms embraced, and their pinions too;      
  Their lips touch’d not, but had not bade adieu,      
As if disjoined by soft-handed slumber,      
And ready still past kisses to outnumber      
  At tender eye-dawn of aurorean love:           20   
        The winged boy I knew;      
  But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove?      
        His Psyche true!      
   
O latest born and loveliest vision far      
  Of all Olympus’ faded hierarchy!           25   
Fairer than Phoebe’s sapphire-region’d star,      
  Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky;      
Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none,      
        Nor altar heap’d with flowers;      
Nor virgin-choir to make delicious moan           30   
        Upon the midnight hours;      
No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet      
  From chain-swung censer teeming;      
No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat      
  Of pale-mouth’d prophet dreaming.           35   
   
O brightest! though too late for antique vows,      
  Too, too late for the fond believing lyre,      
When holy were the haunted forest boughs,      
  Holy the air, the water, and the fire;      
Yet even in these days so far retir’d           40   
  From happy pieties, thy lucent fans,      
  Fluttering among the faint Olympians,      
I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspired.      
So let me be thy choir, and make a moan      
        Upon the midnight hours;           45   
Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet      
  From swinged censer teeming;      
Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat      
  Of pale-mouth’d prophet dreaming.      
   
Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane           50   
  In some untrodden region of my mind,      
Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain,      
  Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind:      
Far, far around shall those dark-cluster’d trees      
  Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep;           55   
And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees,      
  The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull’d to sleep;      
And in the midst of this wide quietness      
A rosy sanctuary will I dress      
With the wreath’d trellis of a working brain,           60   
  With buds, and bells, and stars without a name,      
With all the gardener Fancy e’er could feign,      
  Who breeding flowers, will never breed the same:      
And there shall be for thee all soft delight      
  That shadowy thought can win,           65   
A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,      
  To let the warm Love in!

Lines on the Mermaid Tavern   
   
   
Souls of Poets dead and gone,      
What Elysium have ye known,      
Happy field or mossy cavern,      
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?      
Have ye tippled drink more fine           5   
Than mine host’s Canary wine?      
Or are fruits of Paradise      
Sweeter than those dainty pies      
Of venison? O generous food!      
Drest as though bold Robin Hood           10   
Would, with his maid Marian,      
Sup and bowse from horn and can.      
   
  I have heard that on a day      
Mine host’s sign-board flew away,      
Nobody knew whither, till           15   
An astrologer’s old quill      
To a sheepskin gave the story,      
Said he saw you in your glory,      
Underneath a new old-sign      
Sipping beverage divine,           20   
And pledging with contented smack      
The Mermaid in the Zodiac.      
   
  Souls of Poets dead and gone,      
What Elysium have ye known,      
Happy field or mossy cavern,           25   
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?