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My soul of any rest: yet must I hence:

       Yet, can I not to starry eminence

       Uplift thee; nor for very shame can own Myself to thee. Ah, dearest, do not groan

       Or thou wilt force me from this secrecy,

       And I must blush in heaven. O that I

       Had done it already; that the dreadful smiles

       At my lost brightness, my impassion’d wiles,

       Had waned from Olympus’ solemn height,

       And from all serious Gods; that our delight

       Was quite forgotten, save of us alone!

       And wherefore so ashamed? ’Tis but to atone

       For endless pleasure, by some coward blushes: Yet must I be a coward!–Honour rushes

       Too palpable before me–the sad look

       Of Jove–Minerva’s start–no bosom shook

       With awe of purity–no Cupid pinion

       In reverence veiled–my crystalline dominion

       Half lost, and all old hymns made nullity!

       But what is this to love? O I could fly

       With thee into the ken of heavenly powers,

       So thou wouldst thus, for many sequent hours,

       Press me so sweetly. Now I swear at once That I am wise, that Pallas is a dunce–

       Perhaps her love like mine is but unknown–

       O I do think that I have been alone

       In chastity: yes, Pallas has been sighing,

       While every eye saw me my hair uptying

       With fingers cool as aspen leaves. Sweet love,

       I was as vague as solitary dove,

       Nor knew that nests were built. Now a soft kiss–

       Aye, by that kiss, I vow an endless bliss,

       An immortality of passion’s thine: Ere long I will exalt thee to the shine

       Of heaven ambrosial; and we will shade

       Ourselves whole summers by a river glade;

       And I will tell thee stories of the sky,

       And breathe thee whispers of its minstrelsy.

       My happy love will overwing all bounds!

       O let me melt into thee; let the sounds

       Of our close voices marry at their birth;

       Let us entwine hoveringly–O dearth

       Of human words! roughness of mortal speech! Lispings empyrean will I sometime teach

       Thine honied tongue–lute-breathings, which I gasp

       To have thee understand, now while I clasp

       Thee thus, and weep for fondness–I am pain’d,

       Endymion: woe! woe! is grief contain’d

       In the very deeps of pleasure, my sole life?”–

       Hereat, with many sobs, her gentle strife

       Melted into a languor. He return’d

      Entranced vows and tears.

      Ye who have yearn’d

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      With too much passion, will here stay and pity,

       For the mere sake of truth; as ’tis a ditty

       Not of these days, but long ago ’twas told

       By a cavern wind unto a forest old;

       And then the forest told it in a dream

       To a sleeping lake, whose cool and level gleam

       A poet caught as he was journeying

       To Phœbus’ shrine; and in it he did fling

       His weary limbs, bathing an hour’s space,

       And after, straight in that inspired place He sang the story up into the air,

       Giving it universal freedom. There

       Has it been ever sounding for those ears

       Whose tips are glowing hot. The legend cheers

       Yon centinel stars; and he who listens to it

       Must surely be self-doomed or he will rue it:

       For quenchless burnings come upon the heart,

       Made fiercer by a fear lest any part

       Should be engulphed in the eddying wind.

       As much as here is penn’d doth always find A resting place, thus much comes clear and plain;

       Anon the strange voice is upon the wane–

       And ’tis but echo’d from departing sound,

       That the fair visitant at last unwound

       Her gentle limbs, and left the youth asleep.–

       Thus the tradition of the gusty deep.

      Now turn we to our former chroniclers.–

       Endymion awoke, that grief of hers

       Sweet paining on his ear: he sickly guess’d

       How lone he was once more, and sadly press’d His empty arms together, hung his head,

       And most forlorn upon that widow’d bed

       Sat silently. Love’s madness he had known:

       Often with more than tortured lion’s groan

       Moanings had burst from him; but now that rage

       Had pass’d away: no longer did he wage

       A rough-voic’d war against the dooming stars.

       No, he had felt too much for such harsh jars:

       The lyre of his soul Eolian tun’d

       Forgot all violence, and but commun’d With melancholy thought: O he had swoon’d

       Drunken from pleasure’s nipple; and his love

       Henceforth was dove-like.–Loth was he to move

       From the imprinted couch, and when he did,

       ’Twas with slow, languid paces, and face hid

       In muffling hands. So temper’d, out he stray’d

       Half seeing visions that might have dismay’d

       Alecto’s serpents; ravishments more keen

       Than Hermes’ pipe, when anxious he did lean

       Over eclipsing eyes: and at the last It was a sounding grotto, vaulted, vast,

       O’er studded with a thousand, thousand pearls,

       And crimson mouthed shells with stubborn curls,

       Of every shape and size, even to the bulk

       In which whales arbour close, to brood and sulk

       Against an endless storm. Moreover too,

       Fish-semblances, of green and azure hue,

       Ready to snort their streams. In this cool wonder

       Endymion sat down, and ‘gan to ponder

       On all his life: his youth, up to the day When ‘mid acclaim, and feasts, and garlands gay,

       He stept upon his shepherd throne: the look

       Of his white palace in wild forest nook,

       And all the revels he had lorded there:

       Each tender maiden whom he once thought fair,

       With every friend and fellow-woodlander–

       Pass’d like a dream before him. Then the spur

      

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