Endymion Book III

       Table of Contents

      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!

       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 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–

       Amid the fierce intoxicating tones

       Of trumpets, shoutings, and belabour’d drums,

       And sudden cannon. All! how all this hums,

       In wakeful ears, like uproar past and gone–

       Like thunder clouds that spake to Babylon, 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,

       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, 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–

       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 ‘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,

       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, 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.

       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; 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

       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, 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

       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! 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.

       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. 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,

       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! them hast sent A moonbeam to the deep, deep water-world,

      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

       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,

       Lashed from the crystal roof by