LITMIR.BIZ

      Now while the silent workings of the dawn

      Were busiest, into that selfsame lawn

      All suddenly, with joyful cries, there sped

      A troop of little children garlanded;

      Who gathering round the altar, seemed to pry

      Earnestly round as wishing to espy

      Some folk of holiday: nor had they waited

      For many moments, ere their ears were sated

      With a faint breath of music, which ev’n then

      Fill’d out its voice, and died away again.

      Within a little space again it gave

      Its airy swellings, with a gentle wave,

      To light-hung leaves, in smoothest echoes breaking

      Through copse-clad vallies,–ere their death, o’ertaking

      The surgy murmurs of the lonely sea.

      And now, as deep into the wood as we

      Might mark a lynx’s eye, there glimmered light

      Fair faces and a rush of garments white,

      Plainer and plainer shewing, till at last

      Into the widest alley they all past,

      Making directly for the woodland altar.

      O kindly muse! let not my weak tongue faulter

      In telling of this goodly company,

      Of their old piety, and of their glee:

      But let a portion of ethereal dew

      Fall on my head, and presently unmew

      My soul; that I may dare, in wayfaring,

      To stammer where old Chaucer used to sing.

      Leading the way, young damsels danced along,

      Bearing the burden of a shepherd song;

      Each having a white wicker over brimm’d

      With April’s tender younglings: next, well trimm’d,

      A crowd of shepherds with as sunburnt looks

      As may be read of in Arcadian books;

      Such as sat listening round Apollo’s pipe,

      When the great deity, for earth too ripe,

      Let his divinity o’erflowing die

      In music, through the vales of Thessaly:

      Some idly trailed their sheep-hooks on the ground,

      And some kept up a shrilly mellow sound

      With ebon-tipped flutes: close after these,

      Now coming from beneath the forest trees,

      A venerable priest full soberly,

      Begirt with ministring looks: alway his eye

      Stedfast upon the matted turf he kept,

      And after him his sacred vestments swept.

      From his right hand there swung a vase, milk-white,

      Of mingled wine, out-sparkling generous light;

      And in his left he held a basket full

      Of all sweet herbs that searching eye could cull:

      Wild thyme, and valley-lilies whiter still

      Than Leda’s love, and cresses from the rill.

      His aged head, crowned with beechen wreath,

      Seem’d like a poll of ivy in the teeth Of winter hoar.

      Then came another crowd

      Of shepherds, lifting in due time aloud

      Their share of the ditty. After them appear’d,

      Upfollowed by a multitude that rear’d

      Their voices to the clouds, a fair wrought car,

      Easily rolling so as scarce to mar

      The freedom of three steeds of dapple brown:

      Who stood therein did seem of great renown

      Among the throng. His youth was fully blown,

      Shewing like Ganymede to manhood grown;

      And, for those simple times, his garments were

      A chieftain king’s: beneath his breast, half bare,

      Was hung a silver bugle, and between

      His nervy knees there lay a boar-spear keen.

      A smile was on his countenance; he seem’d,

      To common lookers on, like one who dream’d

      Of idleness in groves Elysian:

      But there were some who feelingly could scan

      A lurking trouble in his nether lip,

      And see that oftentimes the reins would slip

      Through his forgotten hands: then would they sigh,

      And think of yellow leaves, of owlets cry,

      Of logs piled solemnly.–Ah, well-a-day,

      Why should our young Endymion pine away!

      Soon the assembly, in a circle rang’d,

      Stood silent round the shrine: each look was chang’d

      To sudden veneration: women meek

      Beckon’d their sons to silence; while each cheek

      Of virgin bloom paled gently for slight fear.

      Endymion too, without a forest peer,

      Stood, wan, and pale, and with an awed face,

      Among his brothers of the mountain chase.

      In midst of all, the venerable priest

      Eyed them with joy from greatest to the least,

      And, after lifting up his aged hands,

      Thus spake he: “Men of Latmos! shepherd bands!

      Whose care it is to guard a thousand flocks:

      Whether descended from beneath the rocks

      That overtop your mountains; whether come

      From vallies where the pipe is never dumb;

      Or from your swelling downs, where sweet air stirs

      Blue hare-bells lightly, and where prickly furze

      Buds lavish gold; or ye, whose precious charge

      Nibble their fill at ocean’s very marge,

      Whose mellow reeds are touch’d with sounds forlorn

      By the dim echoes of old Triton’s horn:

      Mothers and wives! who day by day prepare

      The scrip, with needments, for the mountain air;

      And all ye gentle girls who foster up

      Udderless lambs, and in a little cup

      Will put choice honey for a favoured youth:

      Yea, every one attend! for in good truth

      Our vows are wanting to our great god Pan.

      Are not our lowing heifers sleeker than

      Night-swollen mushrooms? Are not our wide plains

      Speckled with countless fleeces? Have not rains

      Green’d over April’s lap? No howling sad

      Sickens

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