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 might mean. Perhaps, thought I, Morpheus,

      In passing here, his owlet pinions shook;

      Or, it may be, ere matron Night uptook

      Her ebon urn, young Mercury, by stealth,

      Had dipt his rod in it: such garland wealth

      Came not by common growth. Thus on I thought,

      Until my head was dizzy and distraught.

      Moreover, through the dancing poppies stole

      A breeze, most softly lulling to my soul;

      And shaping visions all about my sight

      Of colours, wings, and bursts of spangly light;

      The which became more strange, and strange, and dim,

      And