There are who lord it o'er their
With most prevailing tinsel: who
Their baaing vanities, to browse
The comfortable green and juicy
From human pastures; or,
O torturing fact!
Who, through an idiot blink, will see
Fire-branded foxes to sear up and
Our gold and ripe-ear'd hopes.
With not one
Of sanctuary splendour, not a
Able to face an owl's, they still are
By the blear-eyed nations in empurpled vests,
And crowns, and turbans.
With unladen breasts,
Save of blown self-applause, they proudly
To their spirit's perch, their being's high account,
Their tiptop nothings, their dull skies, their thrones—Amid the fierce intoxicating
Of trumpets, shoutings, and belabour'd drums,
And sudden cannon.
Ah! how all this hums,
In wakeful ears, like uproar past and gone—Like thunder clouds that spake to Babylon,
And set those old Chaldeans to their tasks.—Are then regalities all gilded masks?
No, there are throned seats
But by a patient wing, a constant spell,
Or by ethereal things that, unconfin'd,
Can make a ladder of the eternal wind,
And poise about in cloudy
To watch the abysm-birth of elements.
Aye, 'bove the withering of old-lipp'd FateA thousand Powers keep religious state,
In water, fiery realm, and airy bourne;
And, silent as a consecrated urn,
Hold sphery sessions for a season due.
Yet few of these far majesties, ah, few!
Have bared their operations to this globe—Few, who with gorgeous pageantry
Our piece of heaven—whose
Shakes hand with our own Ceres; every
Filling with spiritual sweets to plenitude,
As bees gorge full their cells.
And, by the feud'Twixt Nothing and Creation,
I here swear,
Eterne Apollo! that thy Sister
Is of all these the gentlier-mightiest.
When thy gold breath is misting in the west,
She unobserved steals unto her throne,
And there she sits most meek and most alone;
As if she had not pomp subservient;
As if thine eye, high Poet! was not
Towards her with the Muses in thine heart;
As if the ministring stars kept not apart,
Waiting for silver-footed messages.
O Moon! the oldest shades 'mong oldest
Feel palpitations when thou lookest in:
O Moon! old boughs lisp forth a holier
The while they feel thine airy fellowship.
Thou dost bless every where, with silver
Kissing dead things to life.
The sleeping kine,
Couched in thy brightness, dream of fields divine:
Innumerable mountains rise, and rise,
Ambitious for the hallowing of thine eyes;
And yet thy benediction passeth
One obscure hiding-place, one little
Where pleasure may be sent: the nested
Has thy fair face within its tranquil ken,
And from beneath a sheltering ivy
Takes glimpses of thee; thou art a
To the poor patient oyster, where it
Within its pearly house.—The mighty deeps,
The monstrous sea is thine—the myriad sea!
O Moon! far-spooming Ocean bows to thee,
And Tellus feels his forehead's cumbrous load. Cynthia! where art thou now?
What far
Of green or silvery bower doth
Such utmost beauty?
Alas, thou dost
For one as sorrowful: thy cheek is
For one whose cheek is pale: thou dost
His tears, who weeps for thee.
Where dost thou sigh?
Ah! surely that light peeps from Vesper's eye,
Or what a thing is love! 'Tis She, but lo!
How chang'd, how full of ache, how gone in woe!
She dies at the thinnest cloud; her
Is wan on Neptune's blue: yet there's a
Of love-spangles, just off yon cape of trees,
Dancing upon the waves, as if to
The curly foam with amorous influence.
O, not so idle: for down-glancing
She fathoms eddies, and runs wild aboutO'erwhelming water-courses; scaring
The thorny sharks from hiding-holes, and
Their savage eyes with unaccustomed lightning.
Where will the splendor be content to reach?
O love! how potent hast thou been to
Strange journeyings!
Wherever beauty dwells,
In gulf or aerie, mountains or deep dells,
In light, in gloom, in star or blazing sun,
Thou pointest out the way, and straight 'tis won.
Amid his toil thou gav'st Leander breath;
Thou leddest Orpheus through the gleams of death;
Thou madest Pluto bear thin element;
And now,
O winged Chieftain! thou hast sentA moon-beam to the deep, deep water-world,
To find Endymion. On gold sand
With lily shells, and pebbles milky white,
Poor Cynthia greeted him, and sooth'd her
Against his pallid face: he felt the
To breathlessness, and suddenly a
Of his heart's blood: 'twas very sweet; he
His wandering steps, and half-entranced
His head upon a tuft of straggling weeds,
To taste the gentle moon, and freshening beads,
Lashed from the crystal roof by fishes' tails.
And so he kept, until the rosy
Mantling the east, by Aurora's peering
Were lifted from the water's breast, and
Into sweet air; and sober'd morning
Meekly through billows:—when like
Left sudden by a dallying breath of air,
He rose in silence, and once more 'gan
Along his fated way. Far had he roam'd,
With nothing save the hollow vast, that
Above, around, and at his feet; save
More dead than Morpheus' imaginings:
Old rusted anchors, helmets, breast-plates
Of gone sea-warriors; brazen beaks and targe;
Rudders that for a hundred years had
The sway of human hand; gold vase
With long-forgotten story, and
No reveller had ever dipp'd a
But those of Saturn's vintage; mouldering scrolls,
Writ in the tongue of heaven, by those
Who first were on the earth; and sculptures
In ponderous stone, developing the
Of ancient Nox;—then skeletons of man,
Of beast, behemoth, and leviathan,
And elephant, and eagle, and huge
Of nameless monster.
A cold leaden
These secrets struck into him; and
Dian had chaced away that heaviness,
He might have died: but now, with cheered feel,
He onward kept; wooing these thoughts to
About the labyrinth in his soul of love. "What is there in thee,
Moon! that thou shouldst
My heart so potently?
When yet a childI oft have dried my tears when thou hast smil'd.
Thou seem'dst my sister: hand in hand we
From eve to morn across the firmament.
No apples would I gather from the tree,
Till thou hadst cool'd their cheeks deliciously:
No tumbling water ever spake romance,
But when my eyes with thine thereon could dance:
No woods were green enough, no bower divine,
Until thou liftedst up thine eyelids fine:
In sowing time ne'er would I dibble take,
Or drop a seed, till thou wast wide awake;
And, in the summer tide of blossoming,
No one but thee hath heard me blithly
And mesh my dewy flowers all the night.
No melody was like a passing
If it went not to solemnize thy reign.
Yes, in my boyhood, every joy and
By thee were fashion'd to the self-same end;
And as I grew in years, still didst thou
With all my ardours: thou wast the deep glen;
Thou wast the mountain-top—the sage's pen—The poet's harp—the voice of friends—the sun;
Thou wast the river—thou wast glory won;
Thou wast my clarion's blast—thou wast my steed—My goblet full of wine—my topmost deed:—Thou wast the charm of women, lovely Moon!
O what a wild and harmonized
My spirit struck from all the beautiful!
On some bright essence could I lean, and
Myself to immortality:
I
Nature's soft pillow in a wakeful rest.
But, gentle Orb! there came a nearer bliss—My strange love came—Felicity's abyss!
She came, and thou didst fade, and fade away—Yet not entirely; no, thy starry
Has been an under-passion to this hour.
Now I begin to feel thine orby
Is coming fresh upon me:
O be kind,
Keep back thine influence, and do not
My sovereign vision.—Dearest love,
That I can think away from thee and live!—Pardon me, airy planet, that I
One thought beyond thine argent luxuries!
How far beyond!" At this a surpris'd
Frosted the springing verdure of his heart;
For as he lifted up his eyes to
How his own goddess was past all things fair,
He saw far in the concave green of the
An old man sitting calm and peacefully.
Upon a weeded rock this old man sat,
And his white hair was awful, and a
Of weeds were cold beneath his cold thin feet;
And, ample as the largest winding-sheet,
A cloak of blue wrapp'd up his aged bones,
O'erwrought with symbols by the deepest
Of ambitious magic: every
Was woven in with black distinctness; storm,
And calm, and whispering, and hideous
Were emblem'd in the woof; with every
That skims, or dives, or sleeps, 'twixt cape and cape.
The gulphing whale was like a dot in the spell,
Yet look upon it, and 'twould size and
To its huge self; and the minutest
Would pass the very hardest gazer's wish,
And show his little eye's anatomy.
Then there was pictur'd the
Of Neptune; and the sea nymphs round his state,
In beauteous vassalage, look up and wait.
Beside this old man lay a pearly wand,
And in his lap a book, the which he
So stedfastly, that the new
Had time to keep him in amazed ken,
To mark these shadowings, and stand in awe. The old man rais'd his hoary head and
The wilder'd stranger—seeming not to see,
His features were so lifeless.
He woke as from a trance; his snow-white
Went arching up, and like two magic
Furrow'd deep wrinkles in his forehead large,
Which kept as fixedly as rocky marge,
Till round his wither'd lips had gone a smile.
Then up he rose, like one whose tedious
Had watch'd for years in forlorn hermitage,
Who had not from mid-life to utmost
Eas'd in one accent his o'er-burden'd soul,
Even to the trees.
He rose: he grasp'd his stole,
With convuls'd clenches waving it abroad,
And in a voice of solemn joy, that
Echo into oblivion, he said:— "Thou art the man!
Now shall I lay my
In peace upon my watery pillow:
Sleep will come smoothly to my weary brow.
O Jove!
I shall be young again, be young!
O shell-borne Neptune,
I am pierc'd and
With new-born life!
What shall I do?
Where go,
When I have cast this serpent-skin of woe?—I'll swim to the syrens, and one moment
Their melodies, and see their long hair glisten;
Anon upon that giant's arm I'll be,
That writhes about the roots of Sicily:
To northern seas I'll in a twinkling sail,
And mount upon the snortings of a
To some black cloud; thence down I'll madly
On forked lightning, to the deepest deep,
Where through some sucking pool I will be
With rapture to the other side of the world!
O,
I am full of gladness!
Sisters three,
I bow full hearted to your old decree!
Yes, every god be thank'd, and power benign,
For I no more shall wither, droop, and pine.
Thou art the man!" Endymion started
Dismay'd; and, like a wretch from whom the
Tortures hot breath, and speech of agony,
Mutter'd: "What lonely death am I to
In this cold region?
Will he let me freeze,
And float my brittle limbs o'er polar seas?
Or will he touch me with his searing hand,
And leave a black memorial on the sand?
Or tear me piece-meal with a bony saw,
And keep me as a chosen food to
His magian fish through hated fire and flame?
O misery of hell! resistless, tame,
Am I to be burnt up?
No,
I will shout,
Until the gods through heaven's blue look out!—O Tartarus! but some few days
Her soft arms were entwining me, and
Her voice I hung like fruit among green leaves:
Her lips were all my own, and—ah, ripe
Of happiness! ye on the stubble droop,
But never may be garner'd.
I must
My head, and kiss death's foot.
Love! love, farewel!
Is there no hope from thee?
This horrid
Would melt at thy sweet breath.—By Dian's
Feeding from her white fingers, on the windI see thy streaming hair! and now, by Pan,
I care not for this old mysterious man!" He spake, and walking to that aged form,
Look'd high defiance.
Lo! his heart 'gan
With pity, for the grey-hair'd creature wept.
Had he then wrong'd a heart where sorrow kept?
Had he, though blindly contumelious,
Rheum to kind eyes, a sting to human thought,
Convulsion to a mouth of many years?
He had in truth; and he was ripe for tears.
The penitent shower fell, as down he
Before that care-worn sage, who trembling
About his large dark locks, and faultering spake: "Arise, good youth, for sacred Phoebus' sake!
I know thine inmost bosom, and I feelA very brother's yearning for thee
Into mine own: for why? thou
The prison gates that have so long
My weary watching.
Though thou know'st it not,
Thou art commission'd to this fated
For great enfranchisement.
O weep no more;
I am a friend to love, to loves of yore:
Aye, hadst thou never lov'd an unknown powerI had been grieving at this joyous
But even now most miserable old,
I saw thee, and my blood no longer
Gave mighty pulses: in this tottering
Grew a new heart, which at this moment
As dancingly as thine.
Be not afraid,
For thou shalt hear this secret all display'd,
Now as we speed towards our joyous task." So saying, this young soul in age's
Went forward with the Carian side by side:
Resuming quickly thus; while ocean's
Hung swollen at their backs, and jewel'd
Took silently their foot-prints. "My soul
Now past the midway from mortality,
And so I can prepare without a
To tell thee briefly all my joy and pain.
I was a fisher once, upon this main,
And my boat danc'd in every creek and bay;
Rough billows were my home by night and day,—The sea-gulls not more constant; for I
No housing from the storm and tempests mad,
But hollow rocks,—and they were
Of silent happiness, of slumberous ease:
Long years of misery have told me so.
Aye, thus it was one thousand years ago.
One thousand years!—Is it then
To look so plainly through them? to dispelA thousand years with backward glance sublime?
To breathe away as 'twere all scummy
From off a crystal pool, to see its deep,
And one's own image from the bottom peep?
Yes: now I am no longer wretched thrall,
My long captivity and moanings
Are but a slime, a thin-pervading scum,
The which I breathe away, and thronging
Like things of yesterday my youthful pleasures. "I touch'd no lute,
I sang not, trod no measures:
I was a lonely youth on desert shores.
My sports were lonely, 'mid continuous roars,
And craggy isles, and sea-mew's plaintive
Plaining discrepant between sea and sky.
Dolphins were still my playmates; shapes
Would let me feel their scales of gold and green,
Nor be my desolation; and, full oft,
When a dread waterspout had rear'd
Its hungry hugeness, seeming ready
To burst with hoarsest thunderings, and
My life away like a vast sponge of fate,
Some friendly monster, pitying my sad state,
Has dived to its foundations, gulph'd it down,
And left me tossing safely.
But the
Of all my life was utmost quietude:
More did I love to lie in cavern rude,
Keeping in wait whole days for Neptune's voice,
And if it came at last, hark, and rejoice!
There blush'd no summer eve but I would
My skiff along green shelving coasts, to
The shepherd's pipe come clear from aery steep,
Mingled with ceaseless bleatings of his sheep:
And never was a day of summer shine,
But I beheld its birth upon the brine:
For I would watch all night to see
Heaven's gates, and Aethon snort his morning
Wide o'er the swelling streams: and
At brim of day-tide, on some grassy lea,
My nets would be spread out, and I at rest.
The poor folk of the sea-country I
With daily boon of fish most delicate:
They knew not whence this bounty, and
Would strew sweet flowers on a sterile beach. "Why was I not contented?
Wherefore
At things which, but for thee,
O Latmian!
Had been my dreary death?
Fool!
I
To feel distemper'd longings: to
The utmost privilege that ocean's
Could grant in benediction: to be
Of all his kingdom.
Long in miseryI wasted, ere in one extremest fitI plung'd for life or death.
To
One's senses with so dense a breathing
Might seem a work of pain; so not
Can I admire how crystal-smooth it felt,
And buoyant round my limbs.
At first I
Whole days and days in sheer astonishment;
Forgetful utterly of self-intent;
Moving but with the mighty ebb and flow.
Then, like a new fledg'd bird that first doth
His spreaded feathers to the morrow chill,
I tried in fear the pinions of my will.'Twas freedom! and at once I
The ceaseless wonders of this ocean-bed.
No need to tell thee of them, for I
That thou hast been a witness—it must
For these I know thou canst not feel a drouth,
By the melancholy corners of that mouth.
So I will in my story straightway
To more immediate matter.
Woe, alas!
That love should be my bane!
Ah,
Scylla fair!
Why did poor Glaucus ever—ever
To sue thee to his heart?
Kind stranger-youth!
I lov'd her to the very white of truth,
And she would not conceive it.
Timid thing!
She fled me swift as sea-bird on the wing,
Round every isle, and point, and promontory,
From where large Hercules wound up his
Far as Egyptian Nile.
My passion
The more, the more I saw her dainty
Gleam delicately through the azure clear:
Until 'twas too fierce agony to bear;
And in that agony, across my
It flash'd, that Circe might find some relief—Cruel enchantress!
So above the waterI rear'd my head, and look'd for Phoebus' daughter.
Aeaea's isle was wondering at the moon:—It seem'd to whirl around me, and a
Left me dead-drifting to that fatal power. "When I awoke, 'twas in a twilight bower;
Just when the light of morn, with hum of bees,
Stole through its verdurous matting of fresh trees.
How sweet, and sweeter! for I heard a lyre,
And over it a sighing voice expire.
It ceased—I caught light footsteps; and
The fairest face that morn e'er look'd
Push'd through a screen of roses.
Starry Jove!
With tears, and smiles, and honey-words she woveA net whose thraldom was more bliss than
The range of flower'd Elysium.
Thus did
The dew of her rich speech: "Ah!
Art awake?
O let me hear thee speak, for Cupid's sake!
I am so oppress'd with joy!
Why,
I have
An urn of tears, as though thou wert cold dead;
And now I find thee living,
I will
From these devoted eyes their silver store,
Until exhausted of the latest drop,
So it will pleasure thee, and force thee
Here, that I too may live: but if
Such cool and sorrowful offerings, thou art
Of soothing warmth, of dalliance supreme;
If thou art ripe to taste a long love dream;
If smiles, if dimples, tongues for ardour mute,
Hang in thy vision like a tempting fruit,
O let me pluck it for thee." Thus she
Her charming syllables, till
Their music came to my o'er-sweeten'd soul;
And then she hover'd over me, and
So near, that if no nearer it had
This furrow'd visage thou hadst never seen. "Young man of Latmos! thus
Am I, that thou may'st plainly see how
This fierce temptation went: and thou may'st
Exclaim,
How then, was Scylla quite forgot? "Who could resist?
Who in this universe?
She did so breathe ambrosia; so
My fine existence in a golden clime.
She took me like a child of suckling time,
And cradled me in roses.
Thus condemn'd,
The current of my former life was stemm'd,
And to this arbitrary queen of senseI bow'd a tranced vassal: nor would
Have mov'd, even though Amphion's harp had
Me back to Scylla o'er the billows rude.
For as Apollo each eve doth deviseA new appareling for western skies;
So every eve, nay every spendthrift
Shed balmy consciousness within that bower.
And I was free of haunts umbrageous;
Could wander in the mazy
Of squirrels, foxes shy, and antler'd deer,
And birds from coverts innermost and
Warbling for very joy mellifluous sorrow—To me new born delights! "Now let me borrow,
For moments few, a temperament as
As Pluto's sceptre, that my words not
These uttering lips, while I in calm speech
How specious heaven was changed to real hell. "One morn she left me sleeping: half awakeI sought for her smooth arms and lips, to
My greedy thirst with nectarous camel-draughts;
But she was gone.
Whereat the barbed
Of disappointment stuck in me so sore,
That out I ran and search'd the forest o'er.
Wandering about in pine and cedar
Damp awe assail'd me; for there 'gan to boomA sound of moan, an agony of sound,
Sepulchral from the distance all around.
Then came a conquering earth-thunder, and
That fierce complain to silence: while I
Down a precipitous path, as if impell'd.
I came to a dark valley.—Groanings
Poisonous about my ears, and louder grew,
The nearer I approach'd a flame's gaunt blue,
That glar'd before me through a thorny brake.
This fire, like the eye of gordian snake,
Bewitch'd me towards; and I soon was nearA sight too fearful for the feel of fear:
In thicket hid I curs'd the haggard scene—The banquet of my arms, my arbour queen,
Seated upon an uptorn forest root;
And all around her shapes, wizard and brute,
Laughing, and wailing, groveling, serpenting,
Shewing tooth, tusk, and venom-bag, and sting!
O such deformities!
Old Charon's self,
Should he give up awhile his penny pelf,
And take a dream 'mong rushes Stygian,
It could not be so phantasied.
Fierce, wan,
And tyrannizing was the lady's look,
As over them a gnarled staff she shook.
Oft-times upon the sudden she laugh'd out,
And from a basket emptied to the
Clusters of grapes, the which they raven'd
And roar'd for more; with many a hungry
About their shaggy jaws.
Avenging, slow,
Anon she took a branch of mistletoe,
And emptied on't a black dull-gurgling phial:
Groan'd one and all, as if some piercing
Was sharpening for their pitiable bones.
She lifted up the charm: appealing
From their poor breasts went sueing to her
In vain; remorseless as an infant's
She whisk'd against their eyes the sooty oil.
Whereat was heard a noise of painful toil,
Increasing gradual to a tempest rage,
Shrieks, yells, and groans of torture-pilgrimage;
Until their grieved bodies 'gan to
And puff from the tail's end to stifled throat:
Then was appalling silence: then a
More wildering than all that hoarse affright;
For the whole herd, as by a whirlwind writhen,
Went through the dismal air like one huge
Antagonizing Boreas,—and so vanish'd.
Yet there was not a breath of wind: she
These phantoms with a nod.
Lo! from the
Came waggish fauns, and nymphs, and satyrs stark,
With dancing and loud revelry,—and
Swifter than centaurs after rapine bent.—Sighing an elephant appear'd and
Before the fierce witch, speaking thus
In human accent: "Potent goddess!
Of pains resistless! make my being brief,
Or let me from this heavy prison fly:
Or give me to the air, or let me die!
I sue not for my happy crown again;
I sue not for my phalanx on the plain;
I sue not for my lone, my widow'd wife;
I sue not for my ruddy drops of life,
My children fair, my lovely girls and boys!
I will forget them;
I will pass these joys;
Ask nought so heavenward, so too—too high:
Only I pray, as fairest boon, to die,
Or be deliver'd from this cumbrous flesh,
From this gross, detestable, filthy mesh,
And merely given to the cold bleak air.
Have mercy,
Goddess!
Circe, feel my prayer!" That curst magician's name fell icy
Upon my wild conjecturing: truth had
Naked and sabre-like against my heart.
I saw a fury whetting a death-dart;
And my slain spirit, overwrought with fright,
Fainted away in that dark lair of night.
Think, my deliverer, how
My waking must have been! disgust, and hate,
And terrors manifold divided meA spoil amongst them.
I prepar'd to
Into the dungeon core of that wild wood:
I fled three days—when lo! before me
Glaring the angry witch.
O Dis, even now,
A clammy dew is beading on my brow,
At mere remembering her pale laugh, and curse."Ha! ha!
Sir Dainty! there must be a
Made of rose leaves and thistledown, express,
To cradle thee my sweet, and lull thee: yes,
I am too flinty-hard for thy nice touch:
My tenderest squeeze is but a giant's clutch.
So, fairy-thing, it shall have
Unheard of yet; and it shall still its
Upon some breast more lily-feminine.
Oh, no—it shall not pine, and pine, and
More than one pretty, trifling thousand years;
And then 'twere pity, but fate's gentle
Cut short its immortality.
Sea-flirt!
Young dove of the waters! truly I'll not
One hair of thine: see how I weep and sigh,
That our heart-broken parting is so nigh.
And must we part?
Ah, yes, it must be so.
Yet ere thou leavest me in utter woe,
Let me sob over thee my last adieus,
And speak a blessing:
Mark me! thou hast
Immortal, for thou art of heavenly race:
But such a love is mine, that here I
Eternally away from thee all
Of youth, and destine thee towards a tomb.
Hence shalt thou quickly to the watery vast;
And there, ere many days be overpast,
Disabled age shall seize thee; and even
Thou shalt not go the way of aged men;
But live and wither, cripple and still
Ten hundred years: which gone,
I then
Thy fragile bones to unknown burial.
Adieu, sweet love, adieu!"—As shot stars fall,
She fled ere I could groan for mercy.
And poisoned was my spirit: despair sungA war-song of defiance 'gainst all hell.
A hand was at my shoulder to
My sullen steps; another 'fore my
Moved on with pointed finger.
In this
Enforced, at the last by ocean's foamI found me; by my fresh, my native home.
Its tempering coolness, to my life akin,
Came salutary as I waded in;
And, with a blind voluptuous rage,
I
Battle to the swollen billow-ridge, and
Large froth before me, while there yet
Hale strength, nor from my bones all marrow drain'd. "Young lover,
I must weep—such hellish
With dry cheek who can tell?
While thus my
Proving upon this element, dismay'd,
Upon a dead thing's face my hand I laid;
I look'd—'twas Scylla!
Cursed, cursed Circe!
O vulture-witch, hast never heard of mercy?
Could not thy harshest vengeance be content,
But thou must nip this tender
Because I lov'd her?—Cold,
O cold
Were her fair limbs, and like a common
The sea-swell took her hair.
Dead as she wasI clung about her waist, nor ceas'd to
Fleet as an arrow through unfathom'd brine,
Until there shone a fabric crystalline,
Ribb'd and inlaid with coral, pebble, and pearl.
Headlong I darted; at one eager
Gain'd its bright portal, enter'd, and behold!'Twas vast, and desolate, and icy-cold;
And all around—But wherefore this to
Who in few minutes more thyself shalt see?—I left poor Scylla in a niche and fled.
My fever'd parchings up, my scathing
Met palsy half way: soon these limbs
Gaunt, wither'd, sapless, feeble, cramp'd, and lame. "Now let me pass a cruel, cruel space,
Without one hope, without one faintest
Of mitigation, or redeeming
Of colour'd phantasy; for I fear 'twould
Thy brain to loss of reason: and next
How a restoring chance came down to
One half of the witch in me. On a day,
Sitting upon a rock above the spray,
I saw grow up from the horizon's brinkA gallant vessel: soon she seem'd to
Away from me again, as though her
Had been resum'd in spite of hindering force—So vanish'd: and not long, before
Dark clouds, and muttering of winds morose.
Old Eolus would stifle his mad spleen,
But could not: therefore all the billows
Toss'd up the silver spume against the clouds.
The tempest came:
I saw that vessel's
In perilous bustle; while upon the
Stood trembling creatures.
I beheld the wreck;
The final gulphing; the poor struggling souls:
I heard their cries amid loud thunder-rolls.
O they had all been sav'd but crazed
Annull'd my vigorous cravings: and thus
And curb'd, think on't,
O Latmian! did I
Writhing with pity, and a cursing
Against that hell-born Circe.
The crew had gone,
By one and one, to pale oblivion;
And I was gazing on the surges prone,
With many a scalding tear and many a groan,
When at my feet emerg'd an old man's hand,
Grasping this scroll, and this same slender wand.
I knelt with pain—reached out my hand—had
These treasures—touch'd the knuckles—they unclasp'd—I caught a finger: but the downward weightO'erpowered me—it sank.
Then 'gan
The storm, and through chill aguish gloom
The comfortable sun.
I was
To search the book, and in the warming
Parted its dripping leaves with eager care.
Strange matters did it treat of, and drew
My soul page after page, till well-nigh
Into forgetfulness; when, stupefied,
I read these words, and read again, and
My eyes against the heavens, and read again.
O what a load of misery and
Each Atlas-line bore off!—a shine of
Came gold around me, cheering me to
Strenuous with hellish tyranny.
Attend!
For thou hast brought their promise to an end. "In the wide sea there lives a forlorn wretch,
Doom'd with enfeebled carcase to
His loath'd existence through ten centuries,
And then to die alone.
Who can deviseA total opposition?
No one.
One million times ocean must ebb and flow,
And he oppressed.
Yet he shall not die,
These things accomplish'd:—If he
Scans all the depths of magic, and
The meanings of all motions, shapes, and sounds;
If he explores all forms and
Straight homeward to their symbol-essences;
He shall not die.
Moreover, and in chief,
He must pursue this task of joy and
Most piously;—all lovers tempest-tost,
And in the savage overwhelming lost,
He shall deposit side by side,
Time's creeping shall the dreary space fulfil:
Which done, and all these labours ripened,
A youth, by heavenly power lov'd and led,
Shall stand before him; whom he shall
How to consummate all.
The youth
Must do the thing, or both will be destroy'd."— "Then," cried the young Endymion, overjoy'd,"We are twin brothers in this destiny!
Say,
I intreat thee, what achievement
Is, in this restless world, for me reserv'd.
What! if from thee my wandering feet had swerv'd,
Had we both perish'd?"—"Look!" the sage replied,"Dost thou not mark a gleaming through the tide,
Of divers brilliances? 'tis the edificeI told thee of, where lovely Scylla lies;
And where I have enshrined
All lovers, whom fell storms have doom'd to
Throughout my bondage." Thus discoursing,
They went till unobscur'd the porches shone;
Which hurryingly they gain'd, and enter'd straight.
Sure never since king Neptune held his
Was seen such wonder underneath the stars.
Turn to some level plain where haughty
Has legion'd all his battle; and
How every soldier, with firm foot, doth
His even breast: see, many steeled squares,
And rigid ranks of iron—whence who
One step?
Imagine further, line by line,
These warrior thousands on the field supine:—So in that crystal place, in silent rows,
Poor lovers lay at rest from joys and woes.—The stranger from the mountains, breathless,
Such thousands of shut eyes in order plac'd;
Such ranges of white feet, and patient
All ruddy,—for here death no blossom nips.
He mark'd their brows and foreheads; saw their
Put sleekly on one side with nicest care;
And each one's gentle wrists, with reverence,
Put cross-wise to its heart. "Let us commence,
Whisper'd the guide, stuttering with joy, even now."He spake, and, trembling like an aspen-bough,
Began to tear his scroll in pieces small,
Uttering the while some mumblings funeral.
He tore it into pieces small as
That drifts unfeather'd when bleak northerns blow;
And having done it, took his dark blue
And bound it round Endymion: then
His wand against the empty air times nine.—"What more there is to do, young man, is thine:
But first a little patience; first
This tangled thread, and wind it to a clue.
Ah, gentle! 'tis as weak as spider's skein;
And shouldst thou break it—What, is it done so clean?
A power overshadows thee!
Oh, brave!
The spite of hell is tumbling to its grave.
Here is a shell; 'tis pearly blank to me,
Nor mark'd with any sign or charactery—Canst thou read aught?
O read for pity's sake!
Olympus! we are safe!
Now,
Carian,
This wand against yon lyre on the pedestal." 'Twas done: and straight with sudden swell and
Sweet music breath'd her soul away, and sigh'dA lullaby to silence.—"Youth! now
These minced leaves on me, and passing
Those files of dead, scatter the same around,
And thou wilt see the issue."—'Mid the
Of flutes and viols, ravishing his heart,
Endymion from Glaucus stood apart,
And scatter'd in his face some fragments light.
How lightning-swift the change! a youthful
Smiling beneath a coral diadem,
Out-sparkling sudden like an upturn'd gem,
Appear'd, and, stepping to a beauteous corse,
Kneel'd down beside it, and with tenderest
Press'd its cold hand, and wept—and Scylla sigh'd!
Endymion, with quick hand, the charm applied—The nymph arose: he left them to their joy,
And onward went upon his high employ,
Showering those powerful fragments on the dead.
And, as he pass'd, each lifted up its head,
As doth a flower at Apollo's touch.
Death felt it to his inwards; 'twas too much:
Death fell a weeping in his charnel-house.
The Latmian persever'd along, and
All were re-animated.
There aroseA noise of harmony, pulses and
Of gladness in the air—while many,
Had died in mutual arms devout and true,
Sprang to each other madly; and the
Felt a high certainty of being blest.
They gaz'd upon Endymion.
Grew drunken, and would have its head and bent.
Delicious symphonies, like airy flowers,
Budded, and swell'd, and, full-blown, shed full
Of light, soft, unseen leaves of sounds divine.
The two deliverers tasted a pure
Of happiness, from fairy-press ooz'd out.
Speechless they eyed each other, and
The fair assembly wander'd to and fro,
Distracted with the richest
Of joy that ever pour'd from heaven. ——"Away!"Shouted the new-born god; "Follow, and
Our piety to Neptunus supreme!"—Then Scylla, blushing sweetly from her dream,
They led on first, bent to her meek surprise,
Through portal columns of a giant size,
Into the vaulted, boundless emerald.
Joyous all follow'd, as the leader call'd,
Down marble steps; pouring as
As hour-glass sand—and fast, as you might
Swallows obeying the south summer's call,
Or swans upon a gentle waterfall. Thus went that beautiful multitude, nor far,
Ere from among some rocks of glittering spar,
Just within ken, they saw descending
Another multitude.
Whereat more
Moved either host.
On a wide sand they met,
And of those numbers every eye was wet;
For each their old love found.
A murmuring rose,
Like what was never heard in all the
Of wind and waters: 'tis past human
To tell; 'tis dizziness to think of it. This mighty consummation made, the
Mov'd on for many a league; and gain'd, and
Huge sea-marks; vanward swelling in array,
And from the rear diminishing away,—Till a faint dawn surpris'd them.
Glaucus cried,"Behold! behold, the palace of his pride!
God Neptune's palaces!" With noise increas'd,
They shoulder'd on towards that brightening east.
At every onward step proud domes
In prospect,—diamond gleams, and golden
Of amber 'gainst their faces levelling.
Joyous, and many as the leaves in spring,
Still onward; still the splendour gradual swell'd.
Rich opal domes were seen, on high
By jasper pillars, letting through their shaftsA blush of coral.
Copious
Each gazer drank; and deeper drank more near:
For what poor mortals fragment up, as
As marble was there lavish, to the
Of one fair palace, that far far surpass'd,
Even for common bulk, those olden three,
Memphis, and Babylon, and Nineveh. As large, as bright, as colour'd as the
Of Iris, when unfading it doth
Beyond a silvery shower, was the
Through which this Paphian army took its march,
Into the outer courts of Neptune's state:
Whence could be seen, direct, a golden gate,
To which the leaders sped; but not half
Ere it burst open swift as fairy thought,
And made those dazzled thousands veil their
Like callow eagles at the first sunrise.
Soon with an eagle nativeness their
Ripe from hue-golden swoons took all the blaze,
And then, behold! large Neptune on his
Of emerald deep: yet not exalt alone;
At his right hand stood winged Love, and
His left sat smiling Beauty's paragon. Far as the mariner on highest
Can see all round upon the calmed vast,
So wide was Neptune's hall: and as the
Doth vault the waters, so the waters
Their doming curtains, high, magnificent,
Aw'd from the throne aloof;—and when
Disclos'd the thunder-gloomings in Jove's air;
But sooth'd as now, flash'd sudden everywhere,
Noiseless, sub-marine cloudlets,
Death to a human eye: for there did
From natural west, and east, and south, and north,
A light as of four sunsets, blazing forthA gold-green zenith 'bove the Sea-God's head.
Of lucid depth the floor, and far
As breezeless lake, on which the slim
Of feather'd Indian darts about, as
The delicatest air: air verily,
But for the portraiture of clouds and sky:
This palace floor breath-air,—but for the
Of deep-seen wonders motionless,—and
Of the dome pomp, reflected in extremes,
Globing a golden sphere. They stood in
Till Triton blew his horn.
The palace rang;
The Nereids danc'd; the Syrens faintly sang;
And the great Sea-King bow'd his dripping head.
Then Love took wing, and from his pinions
On all the multitude a nectarous dew.
The ooze-born Goddess beckoned and
Fair Scylla and her guides to conference;
And when they reach'd the throned
She kist the sea-nymph's cheek,—who sat her downA toying with the doves.
Then,—"Mighty
And sceptre of this kingdom!" Venus said,"Thy vows were on a time to Nais paid:
Behold!"—Two copious tear-drops instant
From the God's large eyes; he smil'd delectable,
And over Glaucus held his blessing hands.—"Endymion!
Ah! still wandering in the
Of love?
Now this is cruel.
Since the hourI met thee in earth's bosom, all my
Have I put forth to serve thee.
What, not
Escap'd from dull mortality's harsh net?
A little patience, youth! 'twill not be long,
Or I am skilless quite: an idle tongue,
A humid eye, and steps luxurious,
Where these are new and strange, are ominous.
Aye,
I have seen these signs in one of heaven,
When others were all blind; and were I
To utter secrets, haply I might
Some pleasant words:—but Love will have his day.
So wait awhile expectant.
Pr'ythee soon,
Even in the passing of thine honey-moon,
Visit my Cytherea: thou wilt
Cupid well-natured, my Adonis kind;
And pray persuade with thee—Ah,
I have done,
All blisses be upon thee, my sweet son!"—Thus the fair goddess: while
Knelt to receive those accents halcyon. Meantime a glorious revelry
Before the Water-Monarch.
Nectar
In courteous fountains to all cups outreach'd;
And plunder'd vines, teeming exhaustless,
New growth about each shell and pendent lyre;
The which, in disentangling for their fire,
Pull'd down fresh foliage and
For dainty toying.
Cupid, empire-sure,
Flutter'd and laugh'd, and oft-times through the
Made a delighted way.
Then dance, and song,
And garlanding grew wild; and pleasure reign'd.
In harmless tendril they each other chain'd,
And strove who should be smother'd deepest
Fresh crush of leaves. O 'tis a very
For one so weak to venture his poor
In such a place as this.
O do not curse,
High Muses! let him hurry to the ending. All suddenly were silent.
A soft
Of dulcet instruments came charmingly;
And then a hymn.
NG of the stormy sea!
Brother of Jove, and
Of elements!
Eternally
Thee the waves awful bow.
Fast, stubborn rock,
At thy fear'd trident shrinking, doth
Its deep foundations, hissing into foam.
All mountain-rivers lost, in the wide
Of thy capacious bosom ever flow.
Thou frownest, and old Eolus thy
Skulks to his cavern, 'mid the gruff
Of all his rebel tempests.
Dark clouds
When, from thy diadem, a silver
Slants over blue dominion.
Thy bright
Gulphs in the morning light, and scuds
To bring thee nearer to that golden
Apollo singeth, while his
Waits at the doors of heaven.
Thou art
For scenes like this: an empire stern hast thou;
And it hath furrow'd that large front: yet now,
As newly come of heaven, dost thou
To blend and
Subdued majesty with this glad time.
O shell-borne King sublime!
We lay our hearts before thee evermore—We sing, and we adore! "Breathe softly, flutes;
Be tender of your strings, ye soothing lutes;
Nor be the trumpet heard!
O vain,
O vain;
Not flowers budding in an April rain,
Nor breath of sleeping dove, nor river's flow,—No, nor the Eolian twang of Love's own bow,
Can mingle music fit for the soft
Of goddess Cytherea!
Yet deign, white Queen of Beauty, thy fair
On our souls' sacrifice. "Bright-winged Child!
Who has another care when thou hast smil'd?
Unfortunates on earth, we see at
All death-shadows, and glooms that
Our spirits, fann'd away by thy light pinions.
O sweetest essence! sweetest of all minions!
God of warm pulses, and dishevell'd hair,
And panting bosoms bare!
Dear unseen light in darkness!
Of light in light! delicious poisoner!
Thy venom'd goblet will we quaff
We fill—we fill!
And by thy Mother's lips——" Was heard no
For clamour, when the golden palace
Opened again, and from without, in shoneA new magnificence.
On oozy
Smooth-moving came Oceanus the old,
To take a latest glimpse at his sheep-fold,
Before he went into his quiet
To muse for ever—Then a lucid wave,
Scoop'd from its trembling sisters of mid-sea,
Afloat, and pillowing up the
Of Doris, and the Egean seer, her spouse—Next, on a dolphin, clad in laurel boughs,
Theban Amphion leaning on his lute:
His fingers went across it—All were
To gaze on Amphitrite, queen of pearls,
And Thetis pearly too.— The palace
Around giddy Endymion; seeing
Was there far strayed from mortality.
He could not bear it—shut his eyes in vain;
Imagination gave a dizzier pain."O I shall die! sweet Venus, be my stay!
Where is my lovely mistress?
Well-away!
I die—I hear her voice—I feel my wing—"At Neptune's feet he sank.
A sudden
Of Nereids were about him, in kind
To usher back his spirit into life:
But still he slept.
At last they
Their cradling arms, and purpos'd to
Towards a crystal bower far away. Lo! while slow carried through the pitying crowd,
To his inward senses these words spake aloud;
Written in star-light on the dark above:
Dearest Endymion! my entire love!
How have I dwelt in fear of fate: 'tis done—Immortal bliss for me too hast thou won.
Arise then! for the hen-dove shall not
Her ready eggs, before I'll kissing
Thee into endless heaven.
Awake! awake! The youth at once arose: a placid
Came quiet to his eyes; and forest green,
Cooler than all the wonders he had seen,
Lull'd with its simple song his fluttering breast.
How happy once again in grassy nest!(line 1):
Woodhouse notes that "Keats said, with much simplicity, 'It will be easily seen what I think of the present ministers, by the beginning of the third Book.'"(line 407):
Whether the reference is to the Pillars of Hercules, the confluence of the Mediterranean and Atlantic, or to the scene of the Death of Hercules, is not very clear; but probably "wound up his story" refers rather to his last labour than to his death on Mount Œta.(lines 863-65):
This simile must surely be a reminiscence of Perrin's Fables Amusantes or some similar book used in Mr.
Clarke's School.
I remember the Fable of the old eagle and her young stood first in the book I used at school.
The draft gives line 860 thus -- 'But soon like eagles natively their gaze...'At the end of this Book Keats wrote in the draft, "Oxf:
Sept. 26."~ Poetical Works of John Keats, ed.
H.
Buxton Forman,
Crowell publ. 1895.
