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, 't is 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 ?
The 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: 't is 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, Out-facing Lucifer, and then had hurl'd
My spear aloft, as signal for the chase
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 tighten 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 dittany, and poppies red:
At which I wonder'd 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 dipp'd 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 colors, wings, and bursts of spangly light; The which became more strange, and strange, and dim, And then were gulf'd in a tumultuous swim: And then I fell asleep. Ah, can I tell The enchantment that afterwards befel? Yet it was but a dream: yet such a dream That never tongue, although it overteem With mellow utterance, like a cavern-spring, Could figure out and to conception bring All I beheld and felt. Methought I lay Watching the zenith, where the milky way Among the stars in virgin splendor pours; And travelling my eye, until the doors Of heaven appear'd to open for my flight, I became loath and fearful to alight,
From such high soaring by a downward glance : So kept me steadfast in that airy trance, Spreading imaginary pinions wide.
When, presently, the stars began to glide, And faint away before my eager view: At which I sigh'd that I could not pursue, And dropp'd my vision to the horizon's verge; And lo! from opening clouds, I saw emerge The loveliest moon, that ever silver'd o'er A shell for Neptune's goblet; she did soar So passionately bright, my dazzled soul Commingling with her argent spheres did roll Through clear and cloudy, even when she went
With silvery oak-apples, and fir-cones brown- By all the echoes that about thee ring, Hear us, O satyr king!
"O Hearkener to the loud-clapping shears, While ever and anon to his shorn peers A ram goes bleating: Winder of the horn, When snouted wild-boars routing tender corn Anger our huntsman: Breather round our farms, To keep off mildews, and all weather harms: Strange ministrant of undescribed sounds, That come a-swooning over hollow grounds, And wither drearily on barren moors: Dread opener of the mysterious doors. Leading to universal knowledge-see, Great son of Dryope,
The many that are come to pay their vows With leaves about their brows!
"Be still the unimaginable lodge For solitary thinkings; such as dodge Conception to the very bourne of heaven,
Then leave the naked brain: be still the leaven, That spreading in this dull and clodded earth, Gives it a touch ethereal-a new birth; Be still a symbol of immensity;
A firmament reflected in a sea;
An element filling the space between ;
An unknown-but no more: we humbly screen With uplift hands our foreheads, lowly bending, And giving out a shout most heaven-rending, Conjure thee to receive our humble Pæan, Upon thy Mount Lycean!"
Even while they brought the burden to a close, A shout from the whole multitude arose,
That linger'd in the air like dying rolls Of abrupt thunder, when Ionian shoals
Of dolphins bob their noses through the brine. Meantime, on shady levels, mossy fine, Young companies nimbly began dancing
To the swift treble pipe, and humming string. Ay, those fair living forms swam heavenly
To tunes forgotten-out of memory :
Fair creatures! whose young children's children bred Thermopyla its heroes-not yet dead,
But in old marbles ever beautiful.
High genitors, unconscious did they cull
Time's sweet first-fruits-they danced to weariness, And then in quiet circles did they press
The hillock turf, and caught the latter end
Of some strange history, potent to send
young mind from its bodily tenement.
Or they might watch the quoit-pitchers, intent On either side; pitying the sad death Of Hyacinthus, when the cruel breath Of Zephyr slew him,-Zephyr penitent, Who now, ere Phœbus mounts the firmament, Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain. The archers too, upon a wider plain, Beside the feathery whizzing of the shaft, And the dull twanging bowstring, and the raft Branch down sweeping from a tall ash top, Call'd up a thousand thoughts to envelope
Those who would watch. Perhaps, the trembling knee And frantic gape of lonely Niobe,
Poor, lonely Niobe! when her lovely young
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