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On her own couch, new made of flower leaves,

       Dried carefully on the cooler side of sheaves

       When last the sun his autumn tresses shook, And the tann’d harvesters rich armfuls took.

       Soon was he quieted to slumbrous rest:

       But, ere it crept upon him, he had prest

       Peona’s busy hand against his lips,

       And still, a sleeping, held her finger-tips

       In tender pressure. And as a willow keeps

       A patient watch over the stream that creeps

       Windingly by it, so the quiet maid

       Held her in peace: so that a whispering blade

       Of grass, a wailful gnat, a bee bustling Down in the bluebells, or a wren light rustling

       Among sere leaves and twigs, might all be heard.

      O magic sleep! O comfortable bird,

       That broodest o’er the troubled sea of the mind

       Till it is hush’d and smooth! O unconfin’d

       Restraint! imprisoned liberty! great key

       To golden palaces, strange minstrelsy,

       Fountains grotesque, new trees, bespangled caves,

       Echoing grottos, full of tumbling waves

       And moonlight; aye, to all the mazy world Of silvery enchantment!–who, upfurl’d

       Beneath thy drowsy wing a triple hour,

       But renovates and lives?–Thus, in the bower,

       Endymion was calm’d to life again.

       Opening his eyelids with a healthier brain,

       He said: “I feel this thine endearing love

       All through my bosom: thou art as a dove

       Trembling its closed eyes and sleeked wings

       About me; and the pearliest dew not brings

       Such morning incense from the fields of May, As do those brighter drops that twinkling stray

       From those kind eyes,–the very home and haunt

       Of sisterly affection. Can I want

       Aught else, aught nearer heaven, than such tears?

       Yet dry them up, in bidding hence all fears

       That, any longer, I will pass my days

       Alone and sad. No, I will once more raise

       My voice upon the mountain-heights; once more

       Make my horn parley from their foreheads hoar:

       Again my trooping hounds their tongues shall loll Around the breathed boar: again I’ll poll

       The fair-grown yew tree, for a chosen bow:

       And, when the pleasant sun is getting low,

       Again I’ll linger in a sloping mead

       To hear the speckled thrushes, and see feed

       Our idle sheep. So be thou cheered sweet,

       And, if thy lute is here, softly intreat

       My soul to keep in its resolved course.”

      Hereat Peona, in their silver source,

       Shut her pure sorrow drops with glad exclaim, And took a lute, from which there pulsing came

       A lively prelude, fashioning the way

       In which her voice should wander. ’Twas a lay

       More subtle cadenced, more forest wild

       Than Dryope’s lone lulling of her child;

       And nothing since has floated in the air

       So mournful strange. Surely some influence rare

       Went, spiritual, through the damsel’s hand;

       For still, with Delphic emphasis, she spann’d

       The quick invisible strings, even though she saw Endymion’s spirit melt away and thaw

       Before the deep intoxication.

       But soon she came, with sudden burst, upon

       Her self-possession–swung the lute aside,

       And earnestly said: “Brother, ’tis vain to hide

       That thou dost know of things mysterious,

       Immortal, starry; such alone could thus

       Weigh down thy nature. Hast thou sinn’d in aught

       Offensive to the heavenly powers? Caught

       A Paphian dove upon a message sent? Thy deathful bow against some deer-herd bent,

       Sacred to Dian? Haply, thou hast seen

       Her naked limbs among the alders green;

       And that, alas! is death. No, I can trace

       Something more high perplexing in thy face!”

      Endymion look’d at her, and press’d her hand,

       And said, “Art thou so pale, who wast so bland

       And merry in our meadows? How is this?

       Tell me thine ailment: tell me all amiss!–

       Ah! thou hast been unhappy at the change Wrought suddenly in me. What indeed more strange?

       Or more complete to overwhelm surmise?

       Ambition is no sluggard: ’tis no prize,

       That toiling years would put within my grasp,

       That I have sigh’d for: with so deadly gasp

       No man e’er panted for a mortal love.

       So all have set my heavier grief above

       These things which happen. Rightly have they done:

       I, who still saw the horizontal sun

       Heave his broad shoulder o’er the edge of the world, Outfacing Lucifer, and then had hurl’d

       My spear aloft, as signal for the chace–

       I, who, for very sport of heart, would race

       With my own steed from Araby; pluck down

       A vulture from his towery perching; frown

       A lion into growling, loth retire–

       To lose, at once, all my toil breeding fire,

       And sink thus low! but I will ease my breast

       Of secret grief, here in this bowery nest.

      “This river does not see the naked sky, Till it begins to progress silverly

       Around the western border of the wood,

       Whence, from a certain spot, its winding flood

       Seems at the distance like a crescent moon:

       And in that nook, the very pride of June,

       Had I been used to pass my weary eves;

       The rather for the sun unwilling leaves

       So dear a picture of his sovereign power,

       And I could witness his most kingly hour,

       When he doth lighten up the golden reins, And paces leisurely down amber plains

       His snorting four. Now when his chariot last

       Its beams against the zodiac-lion cast,

       There blossom’d suddenly a magic bed

       Of sacred ditamy, and poppies red:

       At which I wondered greatly, knowing well

       That but one night had wrought this flowery spell;

       And, sitting down close by, began to muse

       What it

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