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A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
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Its loveliness increases; it will never
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Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
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A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
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Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
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Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
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A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
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Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
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Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
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Of all the unhealthy and o’er-darkened ways
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Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
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Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
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From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
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Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
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For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
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With the green world they live in; and clear rills
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That for themselves a cooling covert make
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’Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
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Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
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And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
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We have imagined for the mighty dead;
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All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
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An endless fountain of immortal drink,
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Pouring unto us from the heaven’s brink.
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Nor do we merely feel these essences
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For one short hour; no, even as the trees
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That whisper round a temple become soon
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Dear as the temple’s self, so does the moon,
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The passion poesy, glories infinite,
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Haunt us till they become a cheering light
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Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast,
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That, whether there be shine, or gloom o’ercast,
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They alway must be with us, or we die.
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Therefore, ’tis with full happiness that I
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Will trace the story of Endymion.
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The very music of the name has gone
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Into my being, and each pleasant scene
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Is growing fresh before me as the green
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Of our own vallies: so I will begin
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Now while I cannot hear the city’s din;
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Now while the early budders are just new,
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And run in mazes of the youngest hue
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About old forests; while the willow trails
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Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
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Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
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Grows lush in juicy stalks, I’ll smoothly steer
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My little boat, for many quiet hours,
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With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
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Many and many a verse I hope to write,
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Before the daisies, vermeil rimm’d and white,
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Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
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Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
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I must be near the middle of my story.
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O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
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See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,
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With universal tinge of sober gold,
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Be all about me when I make an end.
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And now at once, adventuresome, I send
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My herald thought into a wilderness:
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There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
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My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
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Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.
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Upon the sides of Latmos was outspread
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A mighty forest; for the moist earth fed
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So plenteously all weed-hidden roots
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Into o’er-hanging boughs, and precious fruits.
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And it had gloomy shades, sequestered deep,
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Where no man went; and if from shepherd’s keep
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A lamb strayed far a-down those inmost glens,
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Never again saw he the happy pens
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Whither his brethren, bleating with content,
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Over the hills at every nightfall went.
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Among the shepherds, ’twas believed ever,
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That not one fleecy lamb which thus did sever
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From the white flock, but pass’d unworried
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By angry wolf, or pard with prying head,
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Until it came to some unfooted plains
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Where fed the herds of Pan: ay great his gains
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Who thus one lamb did lose. Paths there were many,
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Winding through palmy fern, and rushes fenny,
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And ivy banks; all leading pleasantly
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To a wide lawn, whence one could only see
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Stems thronging all around between the swell
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Of turf and slanting branches: who could tell
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The freshness of the space of heaven above,
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Edg’d round with dark tree tops? through which a dove
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Would often beat its wings, and often too
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A little cloud would move across the blue.
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Full in the middle of this pleasantness
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There stood a marble altar, with a tress
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Of flowers budded newly; and the dew
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Had taken fairy phantasies to strew
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Daisies upon the sacred sward last eve,
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And so the dawned light in pomp receive.
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For ’twas the morn: Apollo’s upward fire
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Made every eastern cloud a silvery pyre
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Of brightness so unsullied, that therein
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A melancholy spirit well might win
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Oblivion, and melt out his essence fine
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Into the winds: rain-scented eglantine
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Gave temperate sweets to that well-wooing sun;
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The lark was lost in him; cold springs had run
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To warm their chilliest bubbles in the grass;
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Man’s voice was on the mountains; and the mass
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Of nature’s lives and wonders puls’d tenfold,
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To feel this sun-rise and its glories old.
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Now while the silent workings of the dawn
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Were busiest, into that self-same lawn
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All suddenly, with joyful cries, there sped
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A troop of little children garlanded;
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Who gathering round the altar, seemed to pry
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Earnestly round as wishing to espy
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Some folk of holiday: nor had they waited
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For many moments, ere their ears were sated
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With a faint breath of music, which ev’n then
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Fill’d out its voice, and died away again.
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Within a little space again it gave
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Its airy swellings, with a gentle wave,
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To light-hung leaves, in smoothest echoes breaking
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Through copse-clad vallies,—ere their death, oer-taking
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The surgy murmurs of the lonely sea.
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And now, as deep into the wood as we
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Might mark a lynx’s eye, there glimmered light
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Fair faces and a rush of garments white,
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Plainer and plainer shewing, till at last
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Into the widest alley they all past,
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Making directly for the woodland altar.
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O kindly muse! let not my weak tongue faulter
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In telling of this goodly company,
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Of their old piety, and of their glee:
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But let a portion of ethereal dew
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Fall on my head, and presently unmew
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My soul; that I may dare, in wayfaring,
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To stammer where old Chaucer used to sing.
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Leading the way, young damsels danced along,
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Bearing the burden of a shepherd song;
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Each having a white wicker over brimm’d
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With April’s tender younglings: next, well trimm’d,
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A crowd of shepherds with as sunburnt looks
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As may be read of in Arcadian books;
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Such as sat listening round Apollo’s pipe,
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When the great deity, for earth too ripe,
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Let his divinity o’er-flowing die
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In music, through the vales of Thessaly:
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Some idly trailed their sheep-hooks on the ground,
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And some kept up a shrilly mellow sound
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With ebon-tipped flutes: close after these,
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Now coming from beneath the forest trees,
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A venerable priest full soberly,
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Begirt with ministring looks: alway his eye
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Stedfast upon the matted turf he kept,
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And after him his sacred vestments swept.
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From his right hand there swung a vase, milk-white,
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Of mingled wine, out-sparkling generous light;
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And in his left he held a basket full
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Of all sweet herbs that searching eye could cull:
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Wild thyme, and valley-lilies whiter still
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Than Leda’s love, and cresses from the rill.
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His aged head, crowned with beechen wreath,
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Seem’d like a poll of ivy in the teeth
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Of winter hoar. Then came another crowd
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Of shepherds, lifting in due time aloud
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Their share of the ditty. After them appear’d,
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Up-followed by a multitude that rear’d
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Their voices to the clouds, a fair wrought car,
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Easily rolling so as scarce to mar
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The freedom of three steeds of dapple brown:
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Who stood therein did seem of great renown
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Among the throng. His youth was fully blown,
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Shewing like Ganymede to manhood grown;
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And, for those simple times, his garments were
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A chieftain king’s: beneath his breast, half bare,
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Was hung a silver bugle, and between
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His nervy knees there lay a boar-spear keen.
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A smile was on his countenance; he seem’d,
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To common lookers on, like one who dream’d
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Of idleness in groves Elysian:
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But there were some who feelingly could scan
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A lurking trouble in his nether lip,
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And see that oftentimes the reins would slip
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Through his forgotten hands: then would they sigh,
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And think of yellow leaves, of owlets cry,
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Of logs piled solemnly.—Ah, well-a-day,
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Why should our young Endymion pine away!
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Soon the assembly, in a circle rang’d,
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Stood silent round the shrine: each look was chang’d
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To sudden veneration: women meek
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Beckon’d their sons to silence; while each cheek
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Of virgin bloom paled gently for slight fear.
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Endymion too, without a forest peer,
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Stood, wan, and pale, and with an awed face,
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Among his brothers of the mountain chase.
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In midst of all, the venerable priest
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Eyed them with joy from greatest to the least,
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And, after lifting up his aged hands,
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Thus spake he: “Men of Latmos! shepherd bands!
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Whose care it is to guard a thousand flocks:
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Whether descended from beneath the rocks
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That overtop your mountains; whether come
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From vallies where the pipe is never dumb;
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Or from your swelling downs, where sweet air stirs
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Blue hare-bells lightly, and where prickly furze
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Buds lavish gold; or ye, whose precious charge
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Nibble their fill at ocean’s very marge,
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Whose mellow reeds are touch’d with sounds forlorn
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By the dim echoes of old Triton’s horn:
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Mothers and wives! who day by day prepare
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The scrip, with needments, for the mountain air;
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And all ye gentle girls who foster up
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Udderless lambs, and in a little cup
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Will put choice honey for a favoured youth:
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Yea, every one attend! for in good truth
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Our vows are wanting to our great god Pan.
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Are not our lowing heifers sleeker than
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Night-swollen mushrooms? Are not our wide plains
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Speckled with countless fleeces? Have not rains
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Green’d over April’s lap? No howling sad
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Sickens our fearful ewes; and we have had
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Great bounty from Endymion our lord.
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The earth is glad: the merry lark has pour’d
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His early song against yon breezy sky,
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That spreads so clear o’er our solemnity.”
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Thus ending, on the shrine he heap’d a spire
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Of teeming sweets, enkindling sacred fire;
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Anon he stain’d the thick and spongy sod
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With wine, in honour of the shepherd-god.
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Now while the earth was drinking it, and while
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Bay leaves were crackling in the fragrant pile,
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And gummy frankincense was sparkling bright
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<>’Neath smothering parsley, and a hazy light
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Spread greyly eastward, thus a chorus sang:
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“O THOU, whose mighty palace roof doth hang
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From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth
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Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death
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Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness;
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Who lov’st to see the hamadryads dress
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Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels darken;
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And through whole solemn hours dost sit, and hearken
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The dreary melody of bedded reeds—
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In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds
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The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth;
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Bethinking thee, how melancholy loth
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Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx—do thou now,
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By thy love’s milky brow!
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By all the trembling mazes that she ran,
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“O thou, for whose soul-soothing quiet, turtles
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Passion their voices cooingly ’mong myrtles,
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What time thou wanderest at eventide
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Through sunny meadows, that outskirt the side
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Of thine enmossed realms: O thou, to whom
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Broad leaved fig trees even now foredoom
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Their ripen’d fruitage; yellow girted bees
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Their golden honeycombs; our village leas
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Their fairest-blossom’d beans and poppied corn;
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The chuckling linnet its five young unborn,
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To sing for thee; low creeping strawberries
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Their summer coolness; pent up butterflies
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Their freckled wings; yea, the fresh budding year
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All its completions—be quickly near,
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By every wind that nods the mountain pine,
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“Thou, to whom every fawn and satyr flies
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For willing service; whether to surprise
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The squatted hare while in half sleeping fit;
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Or upward ragged precipices flit
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To save poor lambkins from the eagle’s maw;
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Or by mysterious enticement draw
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Bewildered shepherds to their path again;
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Or to tread breathless round the frothy main,
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And gather up all fancifullest shells
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For thee to tumble into Naiads’ cells,
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And, being hidden, laugh at their out-peeping;
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Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping,
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The while they pelt each other on the crown
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With silvery oak apples, and fir cones brown—
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By all the echoes that about thee ring,
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Hear us, O satyr king!
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“O Hearkener to the loud clapping shears,
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While ever and anon to his shorn peers
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A ram goes bleating: Winder of the horn,
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When snouted wild-boars routing tender corn
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Anger our huntsman: Breather round our farms,
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To keep off mildews, and all weather harms:
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Strange ministrant of undescribed sounds,
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That come a swooning over hollow grounds,
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And wither drearily on barren moors:
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Dread opener of the mysterious doors
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Leading to universal knowledge—see,
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The many that are come to pay their vows
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With leaves about their brows!
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Be still the unimaginable lodge
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For solitary thinkings; such as dodge
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Conception to the very bourne of heaven,
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Then leave the naked brain: be still the leaven,
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That spreading in this dull and clodded earth
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Gives it a touch ethereal—a new birth:
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Be still a symbol of immensity;
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A firmament reflected in a sea;
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An element filling the space between;
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An unknown—but no more: we humbly screen
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With uplift hands our foreheads, lowly bending,
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And giving out a shout most heaven rending,
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Conjure thee to receive our humble Paean,
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Upon thy Mount Lycean!
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Even while they brought the burden to a close,
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A shout from the whole multitude arose,
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That lingered in the air like dying rolls
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Of abrupt thunder, when Ionian shoals
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Of dolphins bob their noses through the brine.
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Meantime, on shady levels, mossy fine,
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Young companies nimbly began dancing
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To the swift treble pipe, and humming string.
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Aye, those fair living forms swam heavenly
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To tunes forgotten—out of memory:
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Fair creatures! whose young children’s children bred
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Thermopylæ its heroes—not yet dead,
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But in old marbles ever beautiful.
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High genitors, unconscious did they cull
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Time’s sweet first-fruits—they danc’d to weariness,
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And then in quiet circles did they press
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The hillock turf, and caught the latter end
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Of some strange history, potent to send
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A young mind from its bodily tenement.
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Or they might watch the quoit-pitchers, intent
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On either side; pitying the sad death
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Of Hyacinthus, when the cruel breath
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Of Zephyr slew him,—Zephyr penitent,
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Who now, ere Phoebus mounts the firmament,
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Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain.
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The archers too, upon a wider plain,
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Beside the feathery whizzing of the shaft,
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And the dull twanging bowstring, and the raft
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Branch down sweeping from a tall ash top,
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Call’d up a thousand thoughts to envelope
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Those who would watch. Perhaps, the trembling knee
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And frantic gape of lonely Niobe,
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Poor, lonely Niobe! when her lovely young
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Were dead and gone, and her caressing tongue
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Lay a lost thing upon her paly lip,
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And very, very deadliness did nip
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Her motherly cheeks. Arous’d from this sad mood
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By one, who at a distance loud halloo’d,
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Uplifting his strong bow into the air,
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Many might after brighter visions stare:
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After the Argonauts, in blind amaze
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Tossing about on Neptune’s restless ways,
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Until, from the horizon’s vaulted side,
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There shot a golden splendour far and wide,
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Spangling those million poutings of the brine
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With quivering ore: ’twas even an awful shine
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From the exaltation of Apollo’s bow;
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A heavenly beacon in their dreary woe.
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Who thus were ripe for high contemplating,
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Might turn their steps towards the sober ring
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Where sat Endymion and the aged priest
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’Mong shepherds gone in eld, whose looks increas’d
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The silvery setting of their mortal star.
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There they discours’d upon the fragile bar
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That keeps us from our homes ethereal;
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And what our duties there: to nightly call
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Vesper, the beauty-crest of summer weather;
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To summon all the downiest clouds together
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For the sun’s purple couch; to emulate
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In ministring the potent rule of fate
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With speed of fire-tailed exhalations;
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To tint her pallid cheek with bloom, who cons
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Sweet poesy by moonlight: besides these,
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A world of other unguess’d offices.
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Anon they wander’d, by divine converse,
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Into Elysium; vieing to rehearse
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Each one his own anticipated bliss.
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One felt heart-certain that he could not miss
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His quick gone love, among fair blossom’d boughs,
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Where every zephyr-sigh pouts and endows
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Her lips with music for the welcoming.
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Another wish’d, mid that eternal spring,
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To meet his rosy child, with feathery sails,
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Sweeping, eye-earnestly, through almond vales:
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Who, suddenly, should stoop through the smooth wind,
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And with the balmiest leaves his temples bind;
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And, ever after, through those regions be
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His messenger, his little Mercury.
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Some were athirst in soul to see again
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Their fellow huntsmen o’er the wide champaign
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In times long past; to sit with them, and talk
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Of all the chances in their earthly walk;
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Comparing, joyfully, their plenteous stores
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Of happiness, to when upon the moors,
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Benighted, close they huddled from the cold,
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And shar’d their famish’d scrips. Thus all out-told
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Their fond imaginations,—saving him
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Whose eyelids curtain’d up their jewels dim,
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Endymion: yet hourly had he striven
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To hide the cankering venom, that had riven
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His fainting recollections. Now indeed
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His senses had swoon’d off: he did not heed
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The sudden silence, or the whispers low,
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Or the old eyes dissolving at his woe,
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Or anxious calls, or close of trembling palms,
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Or maiden’s sigh, that grief itself embalms:
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But in the self-same fixed trance he kept,
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Like one who on the earth had never stept.
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Aye, even as dead-still as a marble man,
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Frozen in that old tale Arabian.
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Who whispers him so pantingly and close?
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Peona, his sweet sister: of all those,
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His friends, the dearest. Hushing signs she made,
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And breath’d a sister’s sorrow to persuade
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A yielding up, a cradling on her care.
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Her eloquence did breathe away the curse:
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She led him, like some midnight spirit nurse
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Of happy changes in emphatic dreams,
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Along a path between two little streams,—
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Guarding his forehead, with her round elbow,
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From low-grown branches, and his footsteps slow
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From stumbling over stumps and hillocks small;
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Until they came to where these streamlets fall,
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With mingled bubblings and a gentle rush,
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Into a river, clear, brimful, and flush
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With crystal mocking of the trees and sky.
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A little shallop, floating there hard by,
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Pointed its beak over the fringed bank;
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And soon it lightly dipt, and rose, and sank,
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And dipt again, with the young couple’s weight,—
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Peona guiding, through the water straight,
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Towards a bowery island opposite;
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Which gaining presently, she steered light
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Into a shady, fresh, and ripply cove,
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Where nested was an arbour, overwove
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By many a summer’s silent fingering;
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To whose cool bosom she was used to bring
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Her playmates, with their needle broidery,
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And minstrel memories of times gone by.
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So she was gently glad to see him laid
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Under her favourite bower’s quiet shade,
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On her own couch, new made of flower leaves,
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Dried carefully on the cooler side of sheaves
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When last the sun his autumn tresses shook,
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And the tann’d harvesters rich armfuls took.
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Soon was he quieted to slumbrous rest:
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But, ere it crept upon him, he had prest
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Peona’s busy hand against his lips,
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And still, a sleeping, held her finger-tips
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In tender pressure. And as a willow keeps
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A patient watch over the stream that creeps
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Windingly by it, so the quiet maid
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Held her in peace: so that a whispering blade
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Of grass, a wailful gnat, a bee bustling
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Down in the blue-bells, or a wren light rustling
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Among seer leaves and twigs, might all be heard.
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O magic sleep! O comfortable bird,
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That broodest o’er the troubled sea of the mind
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Till it is hush’d and smooth! O unconfin’d
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Restraint! imprisoned liberty! great key
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To golden palaces, strange minstrelsy,
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Fountains grotesque, new trees, bespangled caves,
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Echoing grottos, full of tumbling waves
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And moonlight; aye, to all the mazy world
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Of silvery enchantment!—who, upfurl’d
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Beneath thy drowsy wing a triple hour,
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But renovates and lives?—Thus, in the bower,
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Endymion was calm’d to life again.
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Opening his eyelids with a healthier brain,
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He said: “I feel this thine endearing love
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All through my bosom: thou art as a dove
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Trembling its closed eyes and sleeked wings
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About me; and the pearliest dew not brings
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Such morning incense from the fields of May,
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As do those brighter drops that twinkling stray
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From those kind eyes,—the very home and haunt
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Of sisterly affection. Can I want
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Aught else, aught nearer heaven, than such tears?
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Yet dry them up, in bidding hence all fears
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That, any longer, I will pass my days
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Alone and sad. No, I will once more raise
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My voice upon the mountain-heights; once more
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Make my horn parley from their foreheads hoar:
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Again my trooping hounds their tongues shall loll
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Around the breathed boar: again I’ll poll
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The fair-grown yew tree, for a chosen bow:
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And, when the pleasant sun is getting low,
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Again I’ll linger in a sloping mead
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To hear the speckled thrushes, and see feed
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Our idle sheep. So be thou cheered sweet,
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And, if thy lute is here, softly intreat
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My soul to keep in its resolved course.”
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Hereat Peona, in their silver source,
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Shut her pure sorrow drops with glad exclaim,
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And took a lute, from which there pulsing came
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A lively prelude, fashioning the way
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In which her voice should wander. ’Twas a lay
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More subtle cadenced, more forest wild
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Than Dryope’s lone lulling of her child;
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And nothing since has floated in the air
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So mournful strange. Surely some influence rare
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Went, spiritual, through the damsel’s hand;
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For still, with Delphic emphasis, she spann’d
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The quick invisible strings, even though she saw
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Endymion’s spirit melt away and thaw
501
Before the deep intoxication.
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But soon she came, with sudden burst, upon
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Her self-possession—swung the lute aside,
504
And earnestly said: “Brother, ’tis vain to hide
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That thou dost know of things mysterious,
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Immortal, starry; such alone could thus
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Weigh down thy nature. Hast thou sinn’d in aught
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Offensive to the heavenly powers? Caught
509
A Paphian dove upon a message sent?
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Thy deathful bow against some deer-herd bent,
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Sacred to Dian? Haply, thou hast seen
512
Her naked limbs among the alders green;
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And that, alas! is death. No, I can trace
514
Something more high perplexing in thy face!”
515
Endymion look’d at her, and press’d her hand,
516
And said, “Art thou so pale, who wast so bland
517
And merry in our meadows? How is this?
518
Tell me thine ailment: tell me all amiss!—
519
Ah! thou hast been unhappy at the change
520
Wrought suddenly in me. What indeed more strange?
521
Or more complete to overwhelm surmise?
522
Ambition is no sluggard: ’tis no prize,
523
That toiling years would put within my grasp,
524
That I have sigh’d for: with so deadly gasp
525
No man e’er panted for a mortal love.
526
So all have set my heavier grief above
527
These things which happen. Rightly have they done:
528
I, who still saw the horizontal sun
529
Heave his broad shoulder o’er the edge of the world,
530
Out-facing Lucifer, and then had hurl’d
531
My spear aloft, as signal for the chace—
532
I, who, for very sport of heart, would race
533
With my own steed from Araby; pluck down
534
A vulture from his towery perching; frown
535
A lion into growling, loth retire—
536
To lose, at once, all my toil breeding fire,
537
And sink thus low! but I will ease my breast
538
Of secret grief, here in this bowery nest.
539
“This river does not see the naked sky,
540
Till it begins to progress silverly
541
Around the western border of the wood,
542
Whence, from a certain spot, its winding flood
543
Seems at the distance like a crescent moon:
544
And in that nook, the very pride of June,
545
Had I been used to pass my weary eves;
546
The rather for the sun unwilling leaves
547
So dear a picture of his sovereign power,
548
And I could witness his most kingly hour,
549
When he doth lighten up the golden reins,
550
And paces leisurely down amber plains
551
His snorting four. Now when his chariot last
552
Its beams against the zodiac-lion cast,
553
There blossom’d suddenly a magic bed
554
Of sacred ditamy, and poppies red:
555
At which I wondered greatly, knowing well
556
That but one night had wrought this flowery spell;
557
And, sitting down close by, began to muse
558
What it might mean. Perhaps, thought I, Morpheus,
559
In passing here, his owlet pinions shook;
560
Or, it may be, ere matron Night uptook
561
Her ebon urn, young Mercury, by stealth,
562
Had dipt his rod in it: such garland wealth
563
Came not by common growth. Thus on I thought,
564
Until my head was dizzy and distraught.
565
Moreover, through the dancing poppies stole
566
A breeze, most softly lulling to my soul;
567
And shaping visions all about my sight
568
Of colours, wings, and bursts of spangly light;
569
The which became more strange, and strange, and dim,
570
And then were gulph’d in a tumultuous swim:
571
And then I fell asleep. Ah, can I tell
572
The enchantment that afterwards befel?
573
Yet it was but a dream: yet such a dream
574
That never tongue, although it overteem
575
With mellow utterance, like a cavern spring,
576
Could figure out and to conception bring
577
All I beheld and felt. Methought I lay
578
Watching the zenith, where the milky way
579
Among the stars in virgin splendour pours;
580
And travelling my eye, until the doors
581
Of heaven appear’d to open for my flight,
582
I became loth and fearful to alight
583
From such high soaring by a downward glance:
584
So kept me stedfast in that airy trance,
585
Spreading imaginary pinions wide.
586
When, presently, the stars began to glide,
587
And faint away, before my eager view:
588
At which I sigh’d that I could not pursue,
589
And dropt my vision to the horizon’s verge;
590
And lo! from opening clouds, I saw emerge
591
The loveliest moon, that ever silver’d o’er
592
A shell for Neptune’s goblet: she did soar
593
So passionately bright, my dazzled soul
594
Commingling with her argent spheres did roll
595
Through clear and cloudy, even when she went
596
At last into a dark and vapoury tent—
597
Whereat, methought, the lidless-eyed train
598
Of planets all were in the blue again.
599
To commune with those orbs, once more I rais’d
600
My sight right upward: but it was quite dazed
601
By a bright something, sailing down apace,
602
Making me quickly veil my eyes and face:
603
Again I look’d, and, O ye deities,
604
Who from Olympus watch our destinies!
605
Whence that completed form of all completeness?
606
Whence came that high perfection of all sweetness?
607
Speak, stubborn earth, and tell me where, O Where
608
Hast thou a symbol of her golden hair?
609
Not oat-sheaves drooping in the western sun;
610
Not—thy soft hand, fair sister! let me shun
611
Such follying before thee—yet she had,
612
Indeed, locks bright enough to make me mad;
613
And they were simply gordian’d up and braided,
614
Leaving, in naked comeliness, unshaded,
615
Her pearl round ears, white neck, and orbed brow;
616
The which were blended in, I know not how,
617
With such a paradise of lips and eyes,
618
Blush-tinted cheeks, half smiles, and faintest sighs,
619
That, when I think thereon, my spirit clings
620
And plays about its fancy, till the stings
621
Of human neighbourhood envenom all.
622
Unto what awful power shall I call?
623
To what high fane?—Ah! see her hovering feet,
624
More bluely vein’d, more soft, more whitely sweet
625
Than those of sea-born Venus, when she rose
626
From out her cradle shell. The wind out-blows
627
Her scarf into a fluttering pavilion;
628
’Tis blue, and over-spangled with a million
629
Of little eyes, as though thou wert to shed,
630
Over the darkest, lushest blue-bell bed,
631
Handfuls of daisies.”—“Endymion, how strange!
632
Dream within dream!”—“She took an airy range,
633
And then, towards me, like a very maid,
634
Came blushing, waning, willing, and afraid,
635
And press’d me by the hand: Ah! ’twas too much;
636
Methought I fainted at the charmed touch,
637
Yet held my recollection, even as one
638
Who dives three fathoms where the waters run
639
Gurgling in beds of coral: for anon,
640
I felt upmounted in that region
641
Where falling stars dart their artillery forth,
642
And eagles struggle with the buffeting north
643
That balances the heavy meteor-stone;—
644
Felt too, I was not fearful, nor alone,
645
But lapp’d and lull’d along the dangerous sky.
646
Soon, as it seem’d, we left our journeying high,
647
And straightway into frightful eddies swoop’d;
648
Such as ay muster where grey time has scoop’d
649
Huge dens and caverns in a mountain’s side:
650
There hollow sounds arous’d me, and I sigh’d
651
To faint once more by looking on my bliss—
652
I was distracted; madly did I kiss
653
The wooing arms which held me, and did give
654
My eyes at once to death: but ’twas to live,
655
To take in draughts of life from the gold fount
656
Of kind and passionate looks; to count, and count
657
The moments, by some greedy help that seem’d
658
A second self, that each might be redeem’d
659
And plunder’d of its load of blessedness.
660
Ah, desperate mortal! I ev’n dar’d to press
661
Her very cheek against my crowned lip,
662
And, at that moment, felt my body dip
663
Into a warmer air: a moment more,
664
Our feet were soft in flowers. There was store
665
Of newest joys upon that alp. Sometimes
666
A scent of violets, and blossoming limes,
667
Loiter’d around us; then of honey cells,
668
Made delicate from all white-flower bells;
669
And once, above the edges of our nest,
670
An arch face peep’d,—an Oread as I guess’d.
671
“Why did I dream that sleep o’er-power’d me
672
In midst of all this heaven? Why not see,
673
Far off, the shadows of his pinions dark,
674
And stare them from me? But no, like a spark
675
That needs must die, although its little beam
676
Reflects upon a diamond, my sweet dream
677
Fell into nothing—into stupid sleep.
678
And so it was, until a gentle creep,
679
A careful moving caught my waking ears,
680
And up I started: Ah! my sighs, my tears,
681
My clenched hands;—for lo! the poppies hung
682
Dew-dabbled on their stalks, the ouzel sung
683
A heavy ditty, and the sullen day
684
Had chidden herald Hesperus away,
685
With leaden looks: the solitary breeze
686
Bluster’d, and slept, and its wild self did teaze
687
With wayward melancholy; and r thought,
688
Mark me, Peona! that sometimes it brought
689
Faint fare-thee-wells, and sigh-shrilled adieus!—
690
Away I wander’d—all the pleasant hues
691
Of heaven and earth had faded: deepest shades
692
Were deepest dungeons; heaths and sunny glades
693
Were full of pestilent light; our taintless rills
694
Seem’d sooty, and o’er-spread with upturn’d gills
695
Of dying fish; the vermeil rose had blown
696
In frightful scarlet, and its thorns out-grown
697
Like spiked aloe. If an innocent bird
698
Before my heedless footsteps stirr’d, and stirr’d
699
In little journeys, I beheld in it
700
A disguis’d demon, missioned to knit
701
My soul with under darkness; to entice
702
My stumblings down some monstrous precipice:
703
Therefore I eager followed, and did curse
704
The disappointment. Time, that aged nurse,
705
Rock’d me to patience. Now, thank gentle heaven!
706
These things, with all their comfortings, are given
707
To my down-sunken hours, and with thee,
708
Sweet sister, help to stem the ebbing sea
710
Thus ended he, and both
711
Sat silent: for the maid was very loth
712
To answer; feeling well that breathed words
713
Would all be lost, unheard, and vain as swords
714
Against the enchased crocodile, or leaps
715
Of grasshoppers against the sun. She weeps,
716
And wonders; struggles to devise some blame;
717
To put on such a look as would say, Shame
718
On this poor weakness! but, for all her strife,
719
She could as soon have crush’d away the life
720
From a sick dove. At length, to break the pause,
721
She said with trembling chance: “Is this the cause?
722
This all? Yet it is strange, and sad, alas!
723
That one who through this middle earth should pass
724
Most like a sojourning demi-god, and leave
725
His name upon the harp-string, should achieve
726
No higher bard than simple maidenhood,
727
Singing alone, and fearfully,—how the blood
728
Left his young cheek; and how he used to stray
729
He knew not where; and how he would say, nay,
730
If any said ’twas love: and yet ’twas love;
731
What could it be but love? How a ring-dove
732
Let fall a sprig of yew tree in his path;
733
And how he died: and then, that love doth scathe,
734
The gentle heart, as northern blasts do roses;
735
And then the ballad of his sad life closes
736
With sighs, and an alas!—Endymion!
737
Be rather in the trumpet’s mouth,—anon
738
Among the winds at large—that all may hearken!
739
Although, before the crystal heavens darken,
740
I watch and dote upon the silver lakes
741
Pictur’d in western cloudiness, that takes
742
The semblance of gold rocks and bright gold sands,
743
Islands, and creeks, and amber-fretted strands
744
With horses prancing o’er them, palaces
745
And towers of amethyst,—would I so tease
746
My pleasant days, because I could not mount
747
Into those regions? The Morphean fount
748
Of that fine element that visions, dreams,
749
And fitful whims of sleep are made of, streams
750
Into its airy channels with so subtle,
751
So thin a breathing, not the spider’s shuttle,
752
Circled a million times within the space
753
Of a swallow’s nest-door, could delay a trace,
754
A tinting of its quality: how light
755
Must dreams themselves be; seeing they’re more slight
756
Than the mere nothing that engenders them!
757
Then wherefore sully the entrusted gem
758
Of high and noble life with thoughts so sick?
759
Why pierce high-fronted honour to the quick
760
For nothing but a dream?” Hereat the youth
761
Look’d up: a conflicting of shame and ruth
762
Was in his plaited brow: yet his eyelids
763
Widened a little, as when Zephyr bids
764
A little breeze to creep between the fans
765
Of careless butterflies: amid his pains
766
He seem’d to taste a drop of manna-dew,
767
Full palatable; and a colour grew
768
Upon his cheek, while thus he lifeful spake.
769
“Peona! ever have I long’d to slake
770
My thirst for the world’s praises: nothing base,
771
No merely slumberous phantasm, could unlace
772
The stubborn canvas for my voyage prepar’d—
773
Though now ’tis tatter’d; leaving my bark bar’d
774
And sullenly drifting: yet my higher hope
775
Is of too wide, too rainbow-large a scope,
776
To fret at myriads of earthly wrecks.
777
Wherein lies happiness? In that which becks
778
Our ready minds to fellowship divine,
779
A fellowship with essence; till we shine,
780
Full alchemiz’d, and free of space. Behold
781
The clear religion of heaven! Fold
782
A rose leaf round thy finger’s taperness,
783
And soothe thy lips: hist, when the airy stress
784
Of music’s kiss impregnates the free winds,
785
And with a sympathetic touch unbinds
786
Eolian magic from their lucid wombs:
787
Then old songs waken from enclouded tombs;
788
Old ditties sigh above their father’s grave;
789
Ghosts of melodious prophecyings rave
790
Round every spot where trod Apollo’s foot;
791
Bronze clarions awake, and faintly bruit,
792
Where long ago a giant battle was;
793
And, from the turf, a lullaby doth pass
794
In every place where infant Orpheus slept.
795
Feel we these things?—that moment have we stept
796
Into a sort of oneness, and our state
797
Is like a floating spirit’s. But there are
798
Richer entanglements, enthralments far
799
More self-destroying, leading, by degrees,
800
To the chief intensity: the crown of these
801
Is made of love and friendship, and sits high
802
Upon the forehead of humanity.
803
All its more ponderous and bulky worth
804
Is friendship, whence there ever issues forth
805
A steady splendour; but at the tip-top,
806
There hangs by unseen film, an orbed drop
807
Of light, and that is love: its influence,
808
Thrown in our eyes, genders a novel sense,
809
At which we start and fret; till in the end,
810
Melting into its radiance, we blend,
811
Mingle, and so become a part of it,—
812
Nor with aught else can our souls interknit
813
So wingedly: when we combine therewith,
814
Life’s self is nourish’d by its proper pith,
815
And we are nurtured like a pelican brood.
816
Aye, so delicious is the unsating food,
817
That men, who might have tower’d in the van
818
Of all the congregated world, to fan
819
And winnow from the coming step of time
820
All chaff of custom, wipe away all slime
821
Left by men-slugs and human serpentry,
822
Have been content to let occasion die,
823
Whilst they did sleep in love’s elysium.
824
And, truly, I would rather be struck dumb,
825
Than speak against this ardent listlessness:
826
For I have ever thought that it might bless
827
The world with benefits unknowingly;
828
As does the nightingale, upperched high,
829
And cloister’d among cool and bunched leaves—
830
She sings but to her love, nor e’er conceives
831
How tiptoe Night holds back her dark-grey hood.
832
Just so may love, although ’tis understood
833
The mere commingling of passionate breath,
834
Produce more than our searching witnesseth:
835
What I know not: but who, of men, can tell
836
That flowers would bloom, or that green fruit would swell
837
To melting pulp, that fish would have bright mail,
838
The earth its dower of river, wood, and vale,
839
The meadows runnels, runnels pebble-stones,
840
The seed its harvest, or the lute its tones,
841
Tones ravishment, or ravishment its sweet,
842
If human souls did never kiss and greet?
843
“Now, if this earthly love has power to make
844
Men’s being mortal, immortal; to shake
845
Ambition from their memories, and brim
846
Their measure of content; what merest whim,
847
Seems all this poor endeavour after fame,
848
To one, who keeps within his stedfast aim
849
A love immortal, an immortal too.
850
Look not so wilder’d; for these things are true,
851
And never can be born of atomies
852
That buzz about our slumbers, like brain-flies,
853
Leaving us fancy-sick. No, no, I’m sure,
854
My restless spirit never could endure
855
To brood so long upon one luxury,
856
Unless it did, though fearfully, espy
857
A hope beyond the shadow of a dream.
858
My sayings will the less obscured seem,
859
When I have told thee how my waking sight
860
Has made me scruple whether that same night
861
Was pass’d in dreaming. Hearken, sweet Peona!
862
Beyond the matron-temple of Latona,
863
Which we should see but for these darkening boughs,
864
Lies a deep hollow, from whose ragged brows
865
Bushes and trees do lean all round athwart,
866
And meet so nearly, that with wings outraught,
867
And spreaded tail, a vulture could not glide
868
Past them, but he must brush on every side.
869
Some moulder’d steps lead into this cool cell,
870
Far as the slabbed margin of a well,
871
Whose patient level peeps its crystal eye
872
Right upward, through the bushes, to the sky.
873
Oft have I brought thee flowers, on their stalks set
874
Like vestal primroses, but dark velvet
875
Edges them round, and they have golden pits:
876
’Twas there I got them, from the gaps and slits
877
In a mossy stone, that sometimes was my seat,
878
When all above was faint with mid-day heat.
879
And there in strife no burning thoughts to heed,
880
I’d bubble up the water through a reed;
881
So reaching back to boy-hood: make me ships
882
Of moulted feathers, touchwood, alder chips,
883
With leaves stuck in them; and the Neptune be
884
Of their petty ocean. Oftener, heavily,
885
When love-lorn hours had left me less a child,
886
I sat contemplating the figures wild
887
Of o’er-head clouds melting the mirror through.
888
Upon a day, while thus I watch’d, by flew
889
A cloudy Cupid, with his bow and quiver;
890
So plainly character’d, no breeze would shiver
891
The happy chance: so happy, I was fain
892
To follow it upon the open plain,
893
And, therefore, was just going; when, behold!
894
A wonder, fair as any I have told—
895
The same bright face I tasted in my sleep,
896
Smiling in the clear well. My heart did leap
897
Through the cool depth.—It moved as if to flee—
898
I started up, when lo! refreshfully,
899
There came upon my face, in plenteous showers,
900
Dew-drops, and dewy buds, and leaves, and flowers,
901
Wrapping all objects from my smothered sight,
902
Bathing my spirit in a new delight.
903
Aye, such a breathless honey-feel of bliss
904
Alone preserved me from the drear abyss
905
Of death, for the fair form had gone again.
906
Pleasure is oft a visitant; but pain
907
Clings cruelly to us, like the gnawing sloth
908
On the deer’s tender haunches: late, and loth,
909
’Tis scar’d away by slow returning pleasure.
910
How sickening, how dark the dreadful leisure
911
Of weary days, made deeper exquisite,
912
By a fore-knowledge of unslumbrous night!
913
Like sorrow came upon me, heavier still,
914
Than when I wander’d from the poppy hill:
915
And a whole age of lingering moments crept
916
Sluggishly by, ere more contentment swept
917
Away at once the deadly yellow spleen.
918
Yes, thrice have I this fair enchantment seen;
919
Once more been tortured with renewed life.
920
When last the wintry gusts gave over strife
921
With the conquering sun of spring, and left the skies
922
Warm and serene, but yet with moistened eyes
923
In pity of the shatter’d infant buds,—
924
That time thou didst adorn, with amber studs,
925
My hunting cap, because I laugh’d and smil’d,
926
Chatted with thee, and many days exil’d
927
All torment from my breast;—’twas even then,
928
Straying about, yet, coop’d up in the den
929
Of helpless discontent,—hurling my lance
930
From place to place, and following at chance,
931
At last, by hap, through some young trees it struck,
932
And, plashing among bedded pebbles, stuck
933
In the middle of a brook,—whose silver ramble
934
Down twenty little falls, through reeds and bramble,
935
Tracing along, it brought me to a cave,
936
Whence it ran brightly forth, and white did lave
937
The nether sides of mossy stones and rock,—
938
’Mong which it gurgled blythe adieus, to mock
939
Its own sweet grief at parting. Overhead,
940
Hung a lush screen of drooping weeds, and spread
941
Thick, as to curtain up some wood-nymph’s home.
942
“Ah! impious mortal, whither do I roam?”
943
Said I, low voic’d: “Ah whither! ’Tis the grot
944
Of Proserpine, when Hell, obscure and hot,
945
Doth her resign; and where her tender hands
946
She dabbles, on the cool and sluicy sands:
947
Or ’tis the cell of Echo, where she sits,
948
And babbles thorough silence, till her wits
949
Are gone in tender madness, and anon,
950
Faints into sleep, with many a dying tone
951
Of sadness. O that she would take my vows,
952
And breathe them sighingly among the boughs,
953
To sue her gentle ears for whose fair head,
954
Daily, I pluck sweet flowerets from their bed,
955
And weave them dyingly—send honey-whispers
956
Round every leaf, that all those gentle lispers
957
May sigh my love unto her pitying!
958
O charitable echo! hear, and sing
959
This ditty to her!—tell her”—so I stay’d
960
My foolish tongue, and listening, half afraid,
961
Stood stupefied with my own empty folly,
962
And blushing for the freaks of melancholy.
963
Salt tears were coming, when I heard my name
964
Most fondly lipp’d, and then these accents came:
965
‘Endymion! the cave is secreter
966
Than the isle of Delos. Echo hence shall stir
967
No sighs but sigh-warm kisses, or light noise
968
Of thy combing hand, the while it travelling cloys
969
And trembles through my labyrinthine hair.”
970
At that oppress’d I hurried in.—Ah! where
971
Are those swift moments? Whither are they fled?
972
I’ll smile no more, Peona; nor will wed
973
Sorrow the way to death, but patiently
974
Bear up against it: so farewel, sad sigh;
975
And come instead demurest meditation,
976
To occupy me wholly, and to fashion
977
My pilgrimage for the world’s dusky brink.
978
No more will I count over, link by link,
979
My chain of grief: no longer strive to find
980
A half-forgetfulness in mountain wind
981
Blustering about my ears: aye, thou shalt see,
982
Dearest of sisters, what my life shall be;
983
What a calm round of hours shall make my days.
984
There is a paly flame of hope that plays
985
Where’er I look: but yet, I’ll say ’tis naught—
986
And here I bid it die. Have not I caught,
987
Already, a more healthy countenance?
988
By this the sun is setting; we may chance
989
Meet some of our near-dwellers with my car.”
990
This said, he rose, faint-smiling like a star
991
Through autumn mists, and took Peona’s hand:
992
They stept into the boat, and launch’d from land.
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