Thus swelled it forth: ‘Descend,

Young mountaineer! descend where alleys bend

Into the sparry hollows of the world!

Oft hast thou seen bolts of the thunder hurled

As from thy threshold; day by day hast been

A little lower than the chilly sheen

Of icy pinnacles, and dippedst thine arms

Into the deadening ether that still charms

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Their marble being: now, as deep profound

As those are high, descend! He ne’er is crowned

With immortality, who fears to follow

Where airy voices lead: so through the hollow,

The silent mysteries of earth, descend!’

He heard but the last words, nor could contend

One moment in reflection: for he fled

Into the fearful deep, to hide his head

From the clear moon, the trees, and coming madness.

’Twas far too strange, and wonderful for sadness;

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Sharpening, by degrees, his appetite

To dive into the deepest. Dark, nor light,

The region; nor bright, nor sombre wholly,

But mingled up; a gleaming melancholy;

A dusky empire and its diadems;

One faint eternal eventide of gems.

Ay, millions sparkled on a vein of gold,

Along whose track the prince quick footsteps told,

With all its lines abrupt and angular:

Out-shooting sometimes, like a meteor-star,

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Through a vast antre; then the metal woof,

Like Vulcan’s rainbow, with some monstrous roof

Curves hugely: now, far in the deep abyss,

It seems an angry lightning, and doth hiss

Fancy into belief: anon it leads

Through winding passages, where sameness breeds

Vexing conceptions of some sudden change,

Whether to silver grots, or giant range

Of sapphire columns, or fantastic bridge

Athwart a flood of crystal. On a ridge

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Now fareth he, that o’er the vast beneath

Towers like an ocean-cliff, and whence he seeth

A hundred waterfalls, whose voices come

But as the murmuring surge. Chilly and numb

His bosom grew, when first he, far away

Descried an orbèd diamond, set to fray

Old darkness from his throne. ’Twas like the sun

Uprisen o’er chaos, and with such a stun

Came the amazement, that, absorbed in it,

He saw not fiercer wonders – past the wit

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Of any spirit to tell, but one of those

Who, when this planet’s sphering time doth close,

Will be its high remembrancers. Who they?

The mighty ones who have made eternal day

For Greece and England. While astonishment

With deep-drawn sighs was quieting, he went

Into a marble gallery, passing through

A mimic temple, so complete and true

In sacred custom, that he well nigh feared

To search it inwards; whence far off appeared,

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Through a long pillared vista, a fair shrine,

And, just beyond, on light tip-toe divine,

A quivered Dian. Stepping awfully,

The youth approached, oft turning his veiled eye

Down sidelong aisles, and into niches old.

And when, more near against the marble cold

He had touched his forehead, he began to thread

All courts and passages, where silence dead,

Roused by his whispering footsteps, murmured faint:

And long he traversed to and fro, to acquaint

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Himself with every mystery, and awe;

Till, weary, he sat down before the maw

Of a wide outlet, fathomless and dim,

To wild uncertainty and shadows grim.

There, when new wonders ceased to float before,

And thoughts of self came on, how crude and sore

The journey homeward to habitual self!

A mad-pursuing of the fog-born elf,

Whose flitting lantern, through rude nettle-briar,

Cheats us into a swamp, into a fire,

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Into the bosom of a hated thing.

What misery most drowningly doth sing

In lone Endymion’s ear, now he has raught

The goal of consciousness? Ah, ’tis the thought,

The deadly feel of solitude: for lo!

He cannot see the heavens, nor the flow

Of rivers, nor hill-flowers running wild

In pink and purple chequer, nor, up-piled,

The cloudy rack slow journeying in the west,

Like herded elephants; nor felt, nor pressed

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Cool grass, nor tasted the fresh slumbrous air;

But far from such companionship to wear

An unknown time, surcharged with grief, away,

Was now his lot. And must he patient stay,

Tracing fantastic figures with his spear?

‘No!’ exclaimed he, ‘why should I tarry here?’

‘No!’ loudly echoed times innumerable.

At which he straightway started, and ’gan tell

His paces back into the temple’s chief,

Warming and glowing strong in the belief

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Of help from Dian: so that when again

He caught her airy form, thus did he plain,

Moving more near the while: ‘O Haunter chaste

Of river sides, and woods, and heathy waste,

Where with thy silver bow and arrows keen

Art thou now forested! O woodland Queen,

What smoothest air thy smoother forehead woos?

Where dost thou listen to the wide halloos

Of thy disparted nymphs? Through what dark tree

Glimmers thy crescent? Wheresoe’er it be,

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’Tis in the breath of heaven: thou dost taste

Freedom as none can taste it, nor dost waste

Thy loveliness in dismal elements;

But, finding on our green earth sweet contents,

There livest blissfully. Ah, if to thee

It feels Elysian, how rich to me,

An exil’d mortal, sounds its pleasant name!

Within my breast there lives a choking flame –

O let me cool’t the zephyr-boughs among!

A homeward fever parches up my tongue –

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O let me slake it at the running springs!

Upon my ear a noisy nothing rings –

O let me once more hear the linnet’s note!

Before mine eyes thick films and shadows float –

O let me ’noint them with the heaven’s light!

Dost thou now lave thy feet and ankles white?

O think how sweet to me the freshening sluice!

Dost thou now please thy thirst with berry-juice?

O think how this dry palate would rejoice!

If in soft slumber thou dost hear my voice,

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O think how I should love a bed of flowers! –

Young, goddess! let me see my native bowers!

Deliver me from this rapacious deep!’

Thus ending loudly, as he would o’erleap

His destiny, alert he stood: but when

Obstinate silence came heavily again,

Feeling about for its old couch of space

And airy cradle, lowly bowed his face

Desponding, o’er the marble floor’s cold thrill.

But ’twas not long; for, sweeter than the rill

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To its cold channel, or a swollen tide

To margin sallows, were the leaves he spied,

And flowers, and wreaths, and ready myrtle crowns

Up-heaping through the slab. Refreshment drowns

Itself, and strives its own delights to hide –

Nor in one spot alone; the floral pride

In a long whispering birth enchanted grew

Before his footsteps; as when heaved anew

Old ocean rolls a lengthened wave to the shore,

Down whose green back the short-lived foam, all hoar,

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Bursts gradual, with a wayward indolence.

Increasing still in heart, and pleasant sense,

Upon his fairy journey on he hastes;

So anxious for the end, he scarcely wastes

One moment with his hand among the sweets:

Onward he goes – he stops – his bosom beats

As plainly in his ear, as the faint charm

Of which the throbs were born. This still alarm,

This sleepy music, forced him walk tip-toe:

For it came more softly than the east could blow

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Arion’s magic to the Atlantic isles;

Or than the west, made jealous by the smiles

Of throned Apollo, could breathe back the lyre

To seas Ionian and Tyrian.

O did he ever live, that lonely man,

Who loved – and music slew not? ’Tis the pest

Of love, that fairest joys give most unrest;

That things of delicate and tenderest worth

Are swallowed all, and made a searèd dearth,

By one consuming flame – it doth immerse

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And suffocate true blessings in a curse.

Half-happy, by comparison of bliss,

Is miserable. ’Twas even so with this

Dew-dropping melody, in the Carian’s ear;

First heaven, then hell, and then forgotten clear,

Vanished in elemental passion.

And down some swart abysm he had gone,

Had not a heavenly guide benignant led

To where thick myrtle branches, ’gainst his head

Brushing, awakened: then the sounds again

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Went noiseless as a passing noontide rain

Over a bower, where little space he stood;

For as the sunset peeps into a wood

So saw he panting light, and towards it went

Through winding alleys – and lo, wonderment!

Upon soft verdure saw, one here, one there,

Cupids a-slumbering on their pinions fair.

After a thousand mazes overgone,

At last, with sudden step, he came upon

A chamber, myrtle walled, embowered high,

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Full of light, incense, tender minstrelsy,

And more of beautiful and strange beside:

For on a silken couch of rosy pride,

In midst of all, there lay a sleeping youth

Of fondest beauty; fonder, in fair sooth,

Than sighs could fathom, or contentment reach:

And coverlids gold-tinted like the peach,

Or ripe October faded marigolds,

Fell sleek about him in a thousand folds –

Not hiding up an Apollonian curve

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Of neck and shoulder, nor the tenting swerve

Of knee from knee, nor ankles pointing light;

But rather, giving them to the fillèd sight

Officiously. Sideway his face reposed

On one white arm, and tenderly unclosed,

By tenderest pressure, a faint damask mouth

To slumbery pout; just as the morning south

Disparts a dew-lipped rose. Above his head,

Four lily stalks did their white honours wed

To make a coronal; and round him grew

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All tendrils green, of every bloom and hue,

Together intertwined and trammelled fresh:

The vine of glossy sprout; the ivy mesh,

Shading its Ethiope berries; and woodbine,

Of velvet leaves and bugle-blooms divine;

Convolvulus in streakèd vases flush;

The creeper, mellowing for an autumn blush;

And virgin’s bower, trailing airily;

With others of the sisterhood. Hard by,

Stood serene Cupids watching silently.

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One, kneeling to a lyre, touched the strings,

Muffling to death the pathos with his wings;

And, ever and anon, uprose to look

At the youth’s slumber; while another took

A willow-bough, distilling odorous dew,

And shook it on his hair; another flew

In through the woven roof, and fluttering-wise

Rained violets upon his sleeping eyes.

At these enchantments, and yet many more,

The breathless Latmian wondered o’er and o’er;

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Until, impatient in embarrassment,

He forthright passed, and lightly treading went

To that same feathered lyrist, who straightway,

Smiling, thus whispered: ‘Though from upper day

Thou art a wanderer, and thy presence here

Might seem unholy, be of happy cheer!

For ’tis the nicest touch of human honour,

When some ethereal and high-favouring donor

Presents immortal bowers to mortal sense –

As now ’tis done to thee, Endymion. Hence

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Was I in no wise startled. So recline

Upon these living flowers. Here is wine,

Alive with sparkles – never, I aver,

Since Ariadne was a vintager,

So cool a purple: taste these juicy pears,

Sent me by sad Vertumnus, when his fears

Were high about Pomona: here is cream,

Deepening to richness from a snowy gleam;

Sweeter than that nurse Amalthea skimmed

For the boy Jupiter: and here, undimmed

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By any touch, a bunch of blooming plums

Ready to melt between an infant’s gums:

And here is manna picked from Syrian trees,

In starlight, by the three Hesperides.

Feast on, and meanwhile I will let thee know

Of all these things around us.’ He did so,

Still brooding o’er the cadence of his lyre;

And thus: ‘I need not any hearing tire

By telling how the sea-born goddess pined

For a mortal youth, and how she strove to bind

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Him all in all unto her doting self.

Who would not be so prisoned? but, fond elf,

He was content to let her amorous plea

Faint through his careless arms; content to see

An unseized heaven dying at his feet;

Content, O fool! to make a cold retreat,

When on the pleasant grass such love, lovelorn,

Lay sorrowing; when every tear was born

Of diverse passion; when her lips and eyes

Were closed in sullen moisture, and quick sighs

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Came vexed and pettish through her nostrils small.

Hush! no exclaim – yet, justly mightest thou call

Curses upon his head. – I was half glad,

But my poor mistress went distract and mad,

When the boar tusked him: so away she flew

To Jove’s high throne, and by her plainings drew

Immortal tear-drops down the thunderer’s beard;

Whereon, it was decreed he should be reared

Each summer-time to life. Lo! this is he,

That same Adonis, safe in the privacy

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Of this still region all his winter-sleep.

Ay, sleep; for when our love-sick queen did weep

Over his wanèd corse, the tremulous shower

Healed up the wound, and, with a balmy power,

Medicined death to a lengthened drowsiness:

The which she fills with visions, and doth dress

In all this quiet luxury; and hath set

Us young immortals, without any let,

To watch his slumber through. ’Tis well nigh passed,

Even to a moment’s filling up, and fast

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She scuds with summer breezes, to pant through

The first long kiss, warm firstling, to renew

Embowered sports in Cytherea’s isle.

Look! how those wingèd listeners all this while

Stand anxious! See! behold!’ – This clamant word

Broke through the careful silence; for they heard

A rustling noise of leaves, and out there fluttered

Pigeons and doves: Adonis something muttered

The while one hand, that erst upon his thigh

Lay dormant, moved convulsed and gradually

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Up to his forehead. Then there was a hum

Of sudden voices, echoing, ‘Come! come!

Arise! awake! Clear summer has forth walked

Unto the clover-sward, and she has talked

Full soothingly to every nested finch:

Rise, Cupids! or we’ll give the blue-bell pinch

To your dimpled arms. Once more sweet life begin!’

At this, from every side they hurried in,

Rubbing their sleepy eyes with lazy wrists,

And doubling over head their little fists

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In backward yawns. But all were soon alive:

For as delicious wine doth, sparkling, dive

In nectared clouds and curls through water fair,

So from the arbour roof down swelled an air

Odorous and enlivening; making all

To laugh, and play, and sing, and loudly call

For their sweet queen – when lo! the wreathèd green

Disparted, and far upward could be seen

Blue heaven, and a silver car, air-borne,

Whose silent wheels, fresh wet from clouds of morn,

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Spun off a drizzling dew, which falling chill

On soft Adonis’ shoulders, made him still

Nestle and turn uneasily about.

Soon were the white doves plain, with necks stretched out,

And silken traces tightened in descent;

And soon, returning from love’s banishment,

Queen Venus leaning downward open-armed.

Her shadow fell upon his breast, and charmed

A tumult to his heart, and a new life

Into his eyes. Ah, miserable strife,

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But for her comforting! unhappy sight,

But meeting her blue orbs! Who, who can write

Of these first minutes? The unchariest muse

To embracements warm as theirs makes coy excuse.

O it has ruffled every spirit there,

Saving Love’s self, who stands superb to share

The general gladness. Awfully he stands;

A sovereign quell is in his waving hands;

No sight can bear the lightning of his bow;

His quiver is mysterious, none can know

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What themselves think of it; from forth his eyes

There darts strange light of varied hues and dyes;

A scowl is sometimes on his brow, but who

Look full upon it feel anon the blue

Of his fair eyes run liquid through their souls.

Endymion feels it, and no more controls

The burning prayer within him; so, bent low,

He had begun a plaining of his woe.

But Venus, bending forward, said: ‘My child,

Favour this gentle youth; his days are wild

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With love – he – but alas! too well I see

Thou know’st the deepness of his misery.

Ah, smile not so, my son: I tell thee true,

That when through heavy hours I used to rue

The endless sleep of this new-born Adon’,

This stranger aye I pitied. For upon

A dreary morning once I fled away

Into the breezy clouds, to weep and pray

For this my love, for vexing Mars had teased

Me even to tears. Thence, when a little eased,

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Down-looking, vacant, through a hazy wood,

I saw this youth as he despairing stood:

Those same dark curls blown vagrant in the wind;

Those same full-fringèd lids a constant blind

Over his sullen eyes. I saw him throw

Himself on withered leaves, even as though

Death had come sudden; for no jot he moved,

Yet muttered wildly.