O SOVEREIGN power of love! O grief! O balm! All records, saving thine, come cool, and calm, And shadowy, through the mist of passed years: For others, good or bad, hatred and tears Have become indolent; but touching thine, One sigh doth echo, one poor sob doth pine, One kiss brings honey-dew from buried days. The woes of Troy, towers smothering o'er their
Stiff-holden shields, far-piercing spears, keen
Struggling, and blood, and shrieks-all dimly fades Into some backward corner of the brain;
Yet, in our very souls, we feel amain
The close of Troilus and Cressid sweet.
Hence, pageant history! hence, gilded cheat! Swart planet in the universe of deeds! Wide sea, that one continuous murmur breeds Along the pebbled shore of memory! Many old rotten-timber'd boats there be
Upon thy vaporous bosom, magnified
To goodly vessels; many a sail of pride, And golden-keel'd, is left unlaunch'd and dry. But wherefore this? What care, though owl did
About the great Athenian admiral's mast? What care, though striding Alexander past The Indus with his Macedonian numbers? Though old Ulysses tortured from his slumbers The glutted Cyclops, what care ?-Juliet lean- ing
Amid her window-flowers,-sighing,-weaning Tenderly her fancy from its maiden snow, Doth more avail than these: the silver flow Of Hero's tears, the swoon of Imogen, Fair Pastorella in the bandit's den, Are things to brood on with more ardency Than the death-day of empires. Fearfully Must such conviction come upon his head, Who, thus far, discontent, has dared to tread, Without one muse's smile, or kind behest,
The path of love and poesy. But rest, In chafing restlessness, is yet more drear Than to be crush'd, in striving to uprear Love's standard on the battlements of song. So once more days and nights aid me along, Like legion'd soldiers.
Brain-sick shepherd-prince! What promise hast thou faithful guarded since
The day of sacrifice? Or, have new sorrows Come with the constant dawn upon thy morrows? Alas! 'tis his old grief. For many days, Has he been wandering in uncertain ways: Through wilderness, and woods of mossed oaks ; Counting his woe-worn minutes, by the strokes Of the lone wood-cutter; and listening still, Hour after hour, to each lush-leaved rill. Now he is sitting by a shady spring, And elbow-deep with feverous fingering Stems the upbursting cold: a wild rose-tree Pavilions him in bloom, and he doth see A bud which snares his fancy: lo! but now He plucks it, dips its stalk in the water: how! It swells, it buds, it flowers beneath his sight; And, in the middle, there is softly pight A golden butterfly; upon whose wings There must be surely character'd strange things, For with wide eye he wonders, and smiles oft.
Lightly this little herald flew aloft, Follow'd by glad Endymion's clasped hands: Onward it flies. From languor's sullen bands His limbs are loosed, and eager, on he hies Dazzled to trace it in the sunny skies. It seem'd he flew, the way so easy was; And like a new-born spirit did he pass Through the green evening quiet in the sun, O'er many a heath, through many a woodland
Through buried paths, where sleepy twilight
The summer time away. One track unseams A wooded cleft, and, far away, the blue
Of ocean fades upon him; then, anew, He sinks adown a solitary glen,
Where there was never sound of mortal men, Saving, perhaps, some snow-light cadences Melting to silence, when upon the breeze Some holy bark let forth an anthem sweet, To cheer itself to Delphi. Still his feet Went swift beneath the merry-winged guide, Until it reach'd a splashing fountain's side That, near a cavern's mouth, for ever pour'd Unto the temperate air; then high it soar'd, And, downward, suddenly began to dip, As if, athirst with so much toil, 'twould sip The crystal spout-head: so it did, with touch Most delicate, as though afraid to smutch, Even with mealy gold, the waters clear. But, at that very touch, to disappear So fairy-quick, was strange! Bewildered, Endymion sought around, and shook each
Of covert flowers in vain; and then he flung Himself along the grass. What gentle tongue, What whisperer, disturb'd his gloomy rest? It was a nymph uprisen to the breast
In the fountain's pebbly margin, and she stood 'Mong lilies, like the youngest of the brood.
To him her dripping hand she softly kist, And anxiously began to plait and twist
Her ringlets round her fingers, saying: "Youth! Too long, alas, hast thou starved on the ruth, The bitterness of love: too long indeed, Seeing thou art so gentle. Could I weed Thy soul of care, by heavens, I would offer All the bright riches of my crystal coffer To Amphitrite; all my clear-eyed fish, Golden, or rainbow-sided, or purplish, Vermilion-tail'd, or finn'd with silvery gauze; Yea, or my veined pebble-floor, that draws A virgin-light to the deep; my grotto-sands, Tawny and gold, oozed slowly from far lands By my diligent springs: my level lilies, shells, My charming-rod, my potent river spells; Yes, every thing, even to the pearly cup Meander gave me,—for I bubbled up To fainting creatures in a desert wild. But woe is me, I am but as a child To gladden thee; and all I dare to say, Is, that I pity thee; that on this day
I've been thy guide; that thou must wander far In other regions, past the scanty bar
To mortal steps, before thou canst be ta'en From every wasting sigh, from every pain, Into the gentle bosom of thy love.
Why it is thus, one knows in heaven above: But, a poor Naiad, I guess not. Farewell! I have a ditty for hollow cell."
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