Perhaps, the trembling knee

And frantic gape of lonely Niobe –

Poor, lonely Niobe! – when her lovely young

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Were dead and gone, and her caressing tongue

Lay a lost thing upon her paly lip,

And very, very deadliness did nip

Her motherly cheeks. Aroused from this sad mood

By one, who at a distance loud hallooed,

Uplifting his strong bow into the air,

Many might after brighter visions stare:

After the Argonauts, in blind amaze

Tossing about on Neptune’s restless ways,

Until, from the horizon’s vaulted side,

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There shot a golden splendour far and wide,

Spangling those million poutings of the brine

With quivering ore – ’twas even an awful shine

From the exaltation of Apollo’s bow;

A heavenly beacon in their dreary woe.

Who thus were ripe for high contemplating,

Might turn their steps towards the sober ring

Where sat Endymion and the agèd priest

‘Mong shepherds gone in eld, whose looks increased

The silvery setting of their mortal star.

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There they discoursed upon the fragile bar

That keeps us from our homes ethereal,

And what our duties there: to nightly call

Vesper, the beauty-crest of summer weather;

To summon all the downiest clouds together

For the sun’s purple couch; to emulate

In ministering the potent rule of fate

With speed of fire-tailèd exhalations:

To tint her pallid cheek with bloom, who cons

Sweet poesy by moonlight: besides these,

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A world of other unguessed offices.

Anon they wandered, by divine converse,

Into Elysium, vying to rehearse

Each one his own anticipated bliss.

One felt heart-certain that he could not miss

His quick-gone love, among fair blossomed boughs,

Where every zephyr-sigh pouts, and endows

Her lips with music for the welcoming.

Another wished, mid that eternal spring,

To meet his rosy child, with feathery sails,

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Sweeping, eye-earnestly, through almond vales –

Who, suddenly, should stoop through the smooth wind,

And with the balmiest leaves his temples bind;

And, ever after, through those regions be

His messenger, his little Mercury.

Some were athirst in soul to see again

Their fellow huntsmen o’er the wide champaign

In times long past; to sit with them, and talk

Of all the chances in their earthly walk;

Comparing, joyfully, their plenteous stores

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Of happiness, to when upon the moors,

Benighted, close they huddled from the cold,

And shared their famished scrips. Thus all out-told

Their fond imaginations – saving him

Whose eyelids curtained up their jewels dim,

Endymion: yet hourly had he striven

To hide the cankering venom, that had riven

His fainting recollections. Now indeed

His senses had swooned off; he did not heed

The sudden silence, or the whispers low,

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Or the old eyes dissolving at his woe,

Or anxious calls, or close of trembling palms,

Or maiden’s sigh, that grief itself embalms:

But in the self-same fixèd trance he kept,

Like one who on the earth had never stepped.

Ay, even as dead still as a marble man,

Frozen in that old tale Arabian.

Who whispers him so pantingly and close?

Peona, his sweet sister – of all those,

His friends, the dearest. Hushing signs she made,

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And breathed a sister’s sorrow to persuade

A yielding up, a cradling on her care.

Her eloquence did breathe away the curse:

She led him, like some midnight spirit-nurse

Of happy changes in emphatic dreams,

Along a path between two little streams –

Guarding his forehead, with her round elbow,

From low-grown branches, and his footsteps slow

From stumbling over stumps and hillocks small –

Until they came to where these streamlets fall,

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With mingled bubblings and a gentle rush,

Into a river, clear, brimful, and flush

With crystal mocking of the trees and sky.

A little shallop, floating there hard by,

Pointed its beak over the fringèd bank;

And soon it lightly dipped, and rose, and sank,

And dipped again, with the young couple’s weight –

Peona guiding, through the water straight,

Towards a bowery island opposite,

Which gaining presently, she steerèd light

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Into a shady, fresh, and ripply cove,

Where nested was an arbour, overwove

By many a summer’s silent fingering;

To whose cool bosom she was used to bring

Her playmates, with their needle broidery,

And minstrel memories of times gone by.

So she was gently glad to see him laid

Under her favourite bower’s quiet shade,

On her own couch, new made of flower leaves,

Dried carefully on the cooler side of sheaves

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When last the sun his autumn tresses shook,

And the tanned harvesters rich armfuls took.

Soon was he quieted to slumbrous rest:

But, ere it crept upon him, he had pressed

Peona’s busy hand against his lips,

And still, a-sleeping, held her finger-tips

In tender pressure. And as a willow keeps

A patient watch over the stream that creeps

Windingly by it, so the quiet maid

Held her in peace: so that a whispering blade

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Of grass, a wailful gnat, a bee bustling

Down in the blue-bells, or a wren light rustling

Among sere leaves and twigs, might all be heard.

O magic sleep! O comfortable bird,

That broodest o’er the troubled sea of the mind

Till it is hushed and smooth! O unconfined

Restraint! imprisoned liberty! great key

To golden palaces, strange minstrelsy,

Fountains grotesque, new trees, bespangled caves,

Echoing grottoes, full of tumbling waves

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And moonlight; ay, to all the mazy world

Of silvery enchantment! Who, upfurled

Beneath thy drowsy wing a triple hour,

But renovates and lives? – Thus, in the bower,

Endymion was calmed to life again.

Opening his eyelids with a healthier brain,

He said: ‘I feel this thine endearing love

All through my bosom: thou art as a dove

Trembling its closed eyes and sleekèd wings

About me; and the pearliest dew not brings

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Such morning incense from the fields of May,

As do those brighter drops that twinkling stray

From those kind eyes – the very home and haunt

Of sisterly affection. Can I want

Aught else, aught nearer heaven, than such tears?

Yet dry them up, in bidding hence all fears

That, any longer, I will pass my days

Alone and sad. No, I will once more raise

My voice upon the mountain-heights; once more

Make my horn parley from their foreheads hoar;

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Again my trooping hounds their tongues shall loll

Around the breathed boar; again I’ll poll

The fair-grown yew tree for a chosen bow;

And, when the pleasant sun is getting low,

Again I’ll linger in a sloping mead

To hear the speckled thrushes, and see feed

Our idle sheep. So be thou cheered, sweet,

And, if thy lute is here, softly entreat

My soul to keep in its resolvèd course.’

Hereat Peona, in their silver source,

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Shut her pure sorrow-drops with glad exclaim,

And took a lute, from which there pulsing came

A lively prelude, fashioning the way

In which her voice should wander. ’Twas a lay

More subtle cadenced, more forest wild

Than Dryope’s lone lulling of her child;

And nothing since has floated in the air

So mournful strange. Surely some influence rare

Went, spiritual, through the damsel’s hand;

For still, with Delphic emphasis, she spanned

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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, ’tis vain to hide

That thou dost know of things mysterious,

Immortal, starry; such alone could thus

Weigh down thy nature. Hast thou sinned in aught

Offensive to the heavenly powers? Caught

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A Paphian dove upon a message sent?

Thy deathful bow against some deer-head 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 looked at her, and pressed 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!

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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: ’tis no prize,

That toiling years would put within my grasp,

That I have sighed 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

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Heave his broad shoulder o’er the edge of the world,

Out-facing Lucifer, and then had hurled

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.

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‘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,

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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 blossomed suddenly a magic bed

Of sacred ditamy, and poppies red:

At which I wondered 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,

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In passing here, his owlet pinions shook;

Or, it may be, ere matron Night uptook

Her ebon urn, young Mercury, by stealth,

Had dipped 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 colours, wings, and bursts of spangly light;

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The which became more strange, and strange, and dim,

And then were gulfed in a tumultuous swim –

And then I fell asleep. Ah, can I tell

The enchantment that afterwards befell?

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

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Among the stars in virgin splendour pours;

And travelling my eye, until the doors

Of heaven appeared to open for my flight,

I became loth 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 sighed that I could not pursue,

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And dropped my vision to the horizon’s verge –

And lo! from opening clouds, I saw emerge

The loveliest moon, that ever silvered 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

At last into a dark and vapoury tent –

Whereat, methought, the lidless-eyèd train

Of planets all were in the blue again.

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To commune with those orbs, once more I raised

My sight right upward: but it was quite dazed

By a bright something, sailing down apace,

Making me quickly veil my eyes and face:

Again I looked, and, O ye deities,

Who from Olympus watch our destinies!

Whence that completed form of all completeness?

Whence came that high perfection of all sweetness?

Speak, stubborn earth, and tell me where, O where

Hast thou a symbol of her golden hair?

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Not oat-sheaves drooping in the western sun;

Not – thy soft hand, fair sister! let me shun

Such follying before thee – yet she had,

Indeed, locks bright enough to make me mad;

And they were simply gordianed up and braided,

Leaving, in naked comeliness, unshaded,

Her pearl-round ears, white neck, and orbèd brow;

The which were blended in, I know not how,

With such a paradise of lips and eyes,

Blush-tinted cheeks, half smiles, and faintest sighs,

620 That, when I think thereon, my spirit clings

And plays about its fancy, till the stings

Of human neighbourhood envenom all.

Unto what awful power shall I call?

To what high fane? – Ah! see her hovering feet,

More bluely veined, more soft, more whitely sweet

Than those of sea-born Venus, when she rose

From out her cradle shell. The wind out-blows

Her scarf into a fluttering pavilion;

’Tis blue, and over-spangled with a million

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Of little eyes, as though thou wert to shed,

Over the darkest, lushest blue-bell bed,

Handfuls of daisies.’ – ‘Endymion, how strange!

Dream within dream!’ – ‘She took an airy range,

And then, towards me, like a very maid,

Came blushing, waning, willing, and afraid,

And pressed me by the hand: Ah! ’twas too much;

Methought I fainted at the charmèd touch,

Yet held my recollection, even as one

Who dives three fathoms where the waters run

640

Gurgling in beds of coral: for anon,

I felt up-mounted in that region

Where falling stars dart their artillery forth,

And eagles struggle with the buffeting north

That balances the heavy meteor-stone –

Felt too, I was not fearful, nor alone,

But lapped and lulled along the dangerous sky.

Soon, as it seemed, we left our journeying high,

And straightway into frightful eddies swooped,

Such as aye muster where grey time has scooped

650

Huge dens and caverns in a mountain’s side:

There hollow sounds aroused me, and I sighed

To faint once more by looking on my bliss –

I was distracted; madly did I kiss

The wooing arms which held me, and did give

My eyes at once to death – but ’twas to live,

To take in draughts of life from the gold fount

Of kind and passionate looks; to count, and count

The moments, by some greedy help that seemed

A second self, that each might be redeemed

660

And plundered of its load of blessedness.

Ah, desperate mortal! I e’en dared to press

Her very cheek against my crowned lip,

And, at that moment, felt my body dip

Into a warmer air – a moment more,

Our feet were soft in flowers. There was store

Of newest joys upon that alp. Sometimes

A scent of violets, and blossoming limes,

Loitered around us; then of honey cells,

Made delicate from all white-flower bells;

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And once, above the edges of our nest,

An arch face peeped – an Oread as I guessed.

‘Why did I dream that sleep o’er-powered me

In midst of all this heaven? Why not see,

Far off, the shadows of his pinions dark,

And stare them from me? But no, like a spark

That needs must die, although its little beam

Reflects upon a diamond, my sweet dream

Fell into nothing – into stupid sleep.

And so it was, until a gentle creep,

680

A careful moving, caught my waking ears,

And up I started. Ah! my sighs, my tears,

My clenchèd hands – for lo! the poppies hung

Dew-dabbled on their stalks, the ouzel sung

A heavy ditty, and the sullen day

Had chidden herald IIesperus away,

With leaden looks: the solitary breeze

Blustered, and slept, and its wild self did tease

With wayward melancholy; and I thought,

Mark me, Peona! that sometimes it brought

690

Faint fare-thee-wells, and sigh-shrillèd adieus! –

Away I wandered – all the pleasant hues

Of heaven and earth had faded: deepest shades

Were deepest dungeons; heaths and sunny gladcs

Were full of pestilent light; our taintless rills

Seemed sooty, and o’er-spread with upturned gills

Of dying fish; the vermeil rose had blown

In frightful scarlet, and its thorns out-grown

Like spiked aloe. If an innocent bird

Before my heedless footsteps stirred and stirred

700

In little journeys, I beheld in it

A disguised demon, missionèd to knit

My soul with under-darkness, to entice

My stumblings down some monstrous precipice:

Therefore I eager followed, and did curse

The disappointment. Time, that agèd nurse,

Rocked me to patience. Now, thank gentle heaven!

These things, with all their comfortings, are given

To my down-sunken hours, and with thee,

Sweet sister, help to stem the ebbing sea

710

Of weary life.’

Thus ended he, and both

Sat silent: for the maid was very loth

To answer; feeling well that breathèd words

Would all be lost, unheard, and vain as swords

Against the enchasèd crocodile, or leaps

Of grasshoppers against the sun. She weeps,

And wonders; struggles to devise some blame;

To put on such a look as would say, Shame

On this poor weakness! but, for all her strife,

She could as soon have crushed away the life

720

From a sick dove. At length, to break the pause,

She said with trembling chance: ‘Is this the cause?

This all? Yet it is strange, and sad, alas!

That one who through this middle earth should pass

Most like a sojourning demi-god, and leave

His name upon the harp-string, should achieve

No higher bard than simple maidenhood,

Singing alone, and fearfully – how the blood

Left his young cheek; and how he used to stray

He knew not where; and how he would say, nay,

730

If any said ’twas love – and yet ’twas love;

What could it be but love? How a ring-dove

Let fall a sprig of yew tree in his path;

And how he died; and then, that love doth scathe

The gentle heart, as northern blasts do roses;

And then the ballad of his sad life closes

With sighs, and an ‘alas’! – Endymion!

Be rather in the trumpet’s mouth – anon

Among the winds at large, that all may hearken!

Although, before the crystal heavens darken,

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I watch and dote upon the silver lakes

Pictured in western cloudiness, that takes

The semblance of gold rocks and bright gold sands,

Islands, and creeks, and amber-fretted strands

With horses prancing o’er them, palaces

And towers of amethyst – would I so tease

My pleasant days, because I could not mount

Into those regions? The Morphean fount

Of that fine element that visions, dreams,

And fitful whims of sleep are made of, streams

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Into its airy channels with so subtle,

So thin a breathing, not the spider’s shuttle,

Circled a million times within the space

Of a swallow’s nest-door, could delay a trace,

A tinting of its quality: how light

Must dreams themselves be, seeing they’re more slight

Than the mere nothing that engenders them!

Then wherefore sully the entrusted gem

Of high and noble life with thoughts so sick?

Why pierce high-fronted honour to the quick

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For nothing but a dream?’ Hereat the youth

Looked up: a conflicting of shame and ruth

Was in his plaited brow: yet, his eyelids

Widened a little, as when Zephyr bids

A little breeze to creep between the fans

Of careless butterflies. Amid his pains

He seemed to taste a drop of manna-dew,

Full palatable; and a colour grew

Upon his cheek, while thus he lifeful spake.

‘Peona! ever have I longed to slake

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My thirst for the world’s praises: nothing base,

No merely slumbrous phantasm, could unlace

The stubborn canvas for my voyage prepared –

Though now ’tis tattered, leaving my bark bared

And sullenly drifting: yet my higher hope

Is of too wide, too rainbow-large a scope,

To fret at myriads of earthly wrecks.

Wherein lies happiness? In that which becks

Our ready minds to fellowship divine,

A fellowship with essence; till we shine,

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Full alchemized, and free of space.