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art the man! Now shall I lay my head

       In peace upon my watery pillow: now

       Sleep will come smoothly to my weary brow.

       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

       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

       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,

       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

       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,

       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,

       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:

       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

       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,

       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,

       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 careworn sage, who trembling felt

       About his large dark locks, and faultering spake:

      “Arise, good youth, for sacred Phœbus’ 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

       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,

       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

       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:

       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

       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

       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.

       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,

       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

       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

       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

       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,

       And left me tossing safely. But the crown

      

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