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
830
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