Of weary life.”

      Thus ended he, and both

      Sat silent: for the maid was very loth

      To answer; feeling well that breathed words

      Would all be lost, unheard, and vain as swords

      Against the enchased crocodile, or leaps

      Of grasshoppers against the sun. She weeps,

      And wonders; struggles to devise some blame;

      To put on such a look as would say, Shame

      On this poor weakness! but, for all her strife,

      She could as soon have crush’d away the life

      From a sick dove. At length, to break the pause,

      She said with trembling chance: “Is this the cause?

      This all? Yet it is strange, and sad, alas!

      That one who through this middle earth should pass

      Most like a sojourning demi-god, and leave

      His name upon the harp-string, should achieve

      No higher bard than simple maidenhood,

      Singing alone, and fearfully,–how the blood

      Left his young cheek; and how he used to stray

      He knew not where; and how he would say, nay,

      If any said ’twas love: and yet ’twas love;

      What could it be but love? How a ring-dove

      Let fall a sprig of yew tree in his path;

      And how he died: and then, that love doth scathe,

      The gentle heart, as northern blasts do roses;

      And then the ballad of his sad life closes

      With sighs, and an alas!–Endymion!

      Be rather in the trumpet’s mouth,–anon

      Among the winds at large–that all may hearken!

      Although, before the crystal heavens darken,

      I watch and dote upon the silver lakes

      Pictur’d in western cloudiness, that takes

      The semblance of gold rocks and bright gold sands,

      Islands, and creeks, and amber-fretted strands

      With horses prancing o’er them, palaces

      And towers of amethyst,–would I so tease

      My pleasant days, because I could not mount

      Into those regions? The Morphean fount

      Of that fine element that visions, dreams,

      And fitful whims of sleep are made of, streams

      Into its airy channels with so subtle,

      So thin a breathing, not the spider’s shuttle,

      Circled a million times within the space

      Of a swallow’s nest-door, could delay a trace,

      A tinting of its quality: how light

      Must dreams themselves be; seeing they’re more slight

      Than the mere nothing that engenders them!

      Then wherefore sully the entrusted gem

      Of high and noble life with thoughts so sick?

      Why pierce high-fronted honour to the quick

      For nothing but a dream?” Hereat the youth

      Look’d up: a conflicting of shame and ruth

      Was in his plaited brow: yet, his eyelids

      Widened a little, as when Zephyr bids

      A little breeze to creep between the fans

      Of careless butterflies: amid his pains

      He seem’d to taste a drop of manna-dew,

      Full palatable; and a colour grew

      Upon his cheek, while thus he lifeful spake.

      “Peona! ever have I long’d to slake

      My thirst for the world’s praises: nothing base,

      No merely slumberous phantasm, could unlace

      The stubborn canvas for my voyage prepar’d–

      Though now ’tis tatter’d; leaving my bark bar’d

      And sullenly drifting: yet my higher hope

      Is of too wide, too rainbow-large a scope,

      To fret at myriads of earthly wrecks.

      Wherein lies happiness? In that which becks

      Our ready minds to fellowship divine,

      A fellowship with essence; till we shine,

      Full alchemiz’d, and free of space. Behold

      The clear religion of heaven! Fold

      A rose leaf round thy finger’s taperness,

      And soothe thy lips: hist, when the airy stress

      Of music’s kiss impregnates the free winds,

      And with a sympathetic touch unbinds

      Eolian magic from their lucid wombs:

      Then old songs waken from enclouded tombs;

      Old ditties sigh above their father’s grave;

      Ghosts of melodious prophecyings rave

      Round every spot were trod Apollo’s foot;

      Bronze clarions awake, and faintly bruit,

      Where long ago a giant battle was;

      And, from the turf, a lullaby doth pass

      In every place where infant Orpheus slept.

      Feel we these things?–that moment have we stept

      Into a sort of oneness, and our state

      Is like a floating spirit’s. But there are

      Richer entanglements, enthralments far

      More self-destroying, leading, by degrees,

      To the chief intensity: the crown of these

      Is made of love and friendship, and sits high

      Upon the forehead of humanity.

      All