Of flowers budded newly; and the dew
Had taken fairy phantasies to strew
Daisies upon the sacred sward last eve,
And so the dawned light in pomp receive.
For 't was the morn: Apollo's upward fire
Made every eastern cloud a silvery pyre
Of brightness so unsullied, that therein
A melancholy spirit well might win
Oblivion, and melt out his essence fine
Into the winds: rain-scented eglantine

Gave temperate sweets to that well-wooing sun;
The lark was lost in him; cold springs had run
To warm their chilliest bubbles in the grass;
Man's voice was on the mountains; and the mass
Of nature's lives and wonders puls'd tenfold,
To feel this sun-rise and its glories old.

Now while the silent workings of the dawn
Were busiest, into that self-same lawn
All suddenly, with joyful cries, there sped
A troop of little children garlanded;
Who gathering round the altar, seem'd to pry
Earnestly round as wishing to espy

Some folk of holiday: nor had they waited
For many moments, ere their ears were sated
With a faint breath of music, which ev'n then
Fill'd out its voice, and died away again.

Within a little space again it gave

Its airy swellings, with a gentle wave,

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To light-hung leaves, in smoothest echoes breaking
Through copse-clad vallies, -ere their death, o'ertaking 120
The surgy murmurs of the lonely sea.

And now, as deep into the wood as we

Might mark a lynx's eye, there glimmered light

Fair faces and a rush of garments white,
Plainer and plainer shewing, till at last
Into the widest alley they all past,

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Making directly for the woodland altar.

O kindly muse! let not my weak tongue falter,

In telling of this goodly company,

Of their old piety, and of their glee :

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But let a portion of ethereal dew

Fall on my head, and presently unmew

My soul; that I may dare, in wayfaring,

To stammer where old Chaucer used to sing.

Leading the way, young damsels danced along,

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Bearing the burden of a shepherd song;

Each having a white wicker over brimm'd

With April's tender younglings: next, well trimm'd,
A crowd of shepherds with as sunburnt looks

As may be read of in Arcadian books;
Such as sat listening round Apollo's pipe,
When the great deity, for earth too ripe,
Let his divinity o'er-flowing die

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In music, through the vales of Thessaly:

Some idly trailed their sheep-hooks on the ground,

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And some kept up a shrilly mellow sound

With ebon-tipped flutes: close after these,

From his right hand there swung a vase, milk-white,
Of mingled wine, out-sparkling generous light;
And in his left he held a basket full

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Of all sweet herbs that searching eye could cull:

Wild thyme, and valley-lilies whiter still
Than Leda's love, and cresses from the rill.
His aged head, crowned with beechen wreath,
Seem'd like a poll of ivy in the teeth

Of winter hoar. Then came another crowd
Of shepherds, lifting in due time aloud
Their share of the ditty. After them appear'd,
Up-followed by a multitude that rear'd
Their voices to the clouds, a fair wrought car,
Easily rolling so as scarce to mar
The freedom of three steeds of dapple brown :
Who stood therein did seem of great renown
Among the throng. His youth was fully blown,
Shewing like Ganymede to manhood grown ;
And, for those simple times, his garments were
A chieftain king's beneath his breast, half bare,
Was hung a silver bugle, and between

His nervy knees there lay a boar-spear keen.
A smile was on his countenance; he seem'd,
To common lookers on, like one who dream'd
Of idleness in groves Elysian :

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But there were some who feelingly could scan
A lurking trouble in his nether lip,

And see that oftentimes the reins would slip

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Through his forgotten hands: then would they sigh,

And think of yellow leaves, of owlet's cry,

Of logs piled solemnly. — Ah, well-a-day,

Why should our young Endymion pine away!

Soon the assembly, in a circle rang'd

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Stood silent round the shrine: each look was chang'd

To sudden veneration : women meek

Beckon'd their sons to silence; while each cheek

Of virgin bloom pal'd gently for slight fear.
Endymion too, without a forest peer,

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Stood, wan, and pale, and with an awed face,
Among his brothers of the mountain chase.

In midst of all, the venerable priest

Eyed them with joy from greatest to the least,

And, after lifting up his aged hands,

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Thus spake he : "Men of Latmos! shepherd bands!

Whose care it is to guard a thousand flocks :

Whether descended from beneath the rocks

That overtop your mountains ; whether come
From vallies where the pipe is never dumb;

Or from your swelling downs, where sweet air stirs
Blue hare-bells lightly, and where prickly furze
Buds lavish gold; or ye, whose precious charge
Nibble their fill at ocean's very marge,

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Whose mellow reeds are touch'd with sounds forlorn
By the dim echoes of old Triton's horn:

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Mothers and wives! who day by day prepare

The scrip, with needments, for the mountain air;
And all ye gentle girls who foster up
Udderless lambs, and in a little cup
Will put choice honey for a favour'd youth :
Yea, every one attend! for in good truth
Our vows are wanting to our great god Pan.
Are not our lowing heifers sleeker than

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Night-swollen mushrooms? Are not our wide plains 215 Speckled with countless fleeces? Have not rains

Green'd over April's lap? No howling sad

Sickens our fearful ewes; and we have had
Great bounty from Endymion our lord.
The earth is glad the merry lark has pour'd
His early song against yon breezy sky,
That spreads so clear o'er our solemnity."

Thus ending, on the shrine he heap'd a spire
Of teeming sweets, enkindling sacred fire.

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Anon he stain'd the thick and spongy sod
With wine, in honour of the shepherd god.

Now while the earth was drinking it, and while
Bay leaves were crackling in the fragrant pile,
And gummy frankincense was sparkling bright
'Neath smothering parsley, and a hazy light
Spread greyly eastward, thus a chorus sang :

O THOU, whose mighty palace roof doth hang
From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth
Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death
Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness;
Who lov'st to see the hamadryads dress

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Hym
Рам

(rat.)

Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels darken;

And through whole solemn hours dost sit, and hearken

The dreary melody of bedded reeds

In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds

The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth;

Bethinking thee, how melancholy loth

Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx

By thy love's milky brow!

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do thou now,

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By all the trembling mazes that she ran,

Hear us, great Pan !

"O thou, for whose soul-soothing quiet, turtles Passion their voices cooingly 'mong myrtles,

What time thou wanderest at eventide

Through sunny meadows, that outskirt the side.
Of thine enmossed realms : O thou, to whom
Broad leaved fig trees even now foredoom
Their ripen'd fruitage; yellow girted bees

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Their golden honeycombs; our village leas

Their fairest-blossom'd beans and poppied corn ;

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The chuckling linnet its five young unborn,