The Complete Works: Poetry, Plays, Letters and Extensive Biographies - John Keats

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ever in these arms? in this sweet spot

      Pillow my chin for ever? ever press

      These toying hands and kiss their smooth excess?

      Why not for ever and for ever feel

      That breath about my eyes? Ah, thou wilt steal

      Away from me again, indeed, indeed–

      Thou wilt be gone away, and wilt not heed

      My lonely madness. Speak, my kindest fair!

      Is–is it to be so? No! Who will dare

      To pluck thee from me? And, of thine own will,

      Full well I feel thou wouldst not leave me. Still

      Let me entwine thee surer, surer–now

      How can we part? Elysium! who art thou?

      Who, that thou canst not be for ever here,

      Or lift me with thee to some starry sphere?

      Enchantress! tell me by this soft embrace,

      By the most soft completion of thy face,

      Those lips, O slippery blisses, twinkling eyes,

      And by these tenderest, milky sovereignties–

      These tenderest, and by the nectar-wine,

      The passion”– “O lov’d Ida the divine!

      Endymion! dearest! Ah, unhappy me!

      His soul will ‘scape us–O felicity!

      How he does love me! His poor temples beat

      To the very tune of love–how sweet, sweet, sweet.

      Revive, dear youth, or I shall faint and die;

      Revive, or these soft hours will hurry by

      In tranced dulness; speak, and let that spell

      Affright this lethargy! I cannot quell

      Its heavy pressure, and will press at least

      My lips to thine, that they may richly feast

      Until we taste the life of love again.

      What! dost thou move? dost kiss? O bliss! O pain!

      I love thee, youth, more than I can conceive;

      And so long absence from thee doth bereave

      My soul of any rest: yet must I hence:

      Yet, can I not to starry eminence

      Uplift thee; nor for very shame can own

      Myself to thee. Ah, dearest, do not groan

      Or thou wilt force me from this secrecy,

      And I must blush in heaven. O that I

      Had done it already; that the dreadful smiles

      At my lost brightness, my impassion’d wiles,

      Had waned from Olympus’ solemn height,

      And from all serious Gods; that our delight

      Was quite forgotten, save of us alone!

      And wherefore so ashamed? ’Tis but to atone

      For endless pleasure, by some coward blushes:

      Yet must I be a coward!–Honour rushes

      Too palpable before me–the sad look

      Of Jove–Minerva’s start–no bosom shook

      With awe of purity–no Cupid pinion

      In reverence veiled–my crystalline dominion

      Half lost, and all old hymns made nullity!

      But what is this to love? O I could fly

      With thee into the ken of heavenly powers,

      So thou wouldst thus, for many sequent hours,

      Press me so sweetly. Now I swear at once

      That I am wise, that Pallas is a dunce–

      Perhaps her love like mine is but unknown–

      O I do think that I have been alone

      In chastity: yes, Pallas has been sighing,

      While every eye saw me my hair uptying

      With fingers cool as aspen leaves. Sweet love,

      I was as vague as solitary dove,

      Nor knew that nests were built. Now a soft kiss–

      Aye, by that kiss, I vow an endless bliss,

      An immortality of passion’s thine:

      Ere long I will exalt thee to the shine

      Of heaven ambrosial; and we will shade

      Ourselves whole summers by a river glade;

      And I will tell thee stories of the sky,

      And breathe thee whispers of its minstrelsy.

      My happy love will overwing all bounds!

      O let me melt into thee; let the sounds

      Of our close voices marry at their birth;

      Let us entwine hoveringly–O dearth

      Of human words! roughness of mortal speech!

      Lispings empyrean will I sometime teach

      Thine honied tongue–lute-breathings, which I gasp

      To have thee understand, now while I clasp

      Thee thus, and weep for fondness–I am pain’d,

      Endymion: woe! woe! is grief contain’d

      In the very deeps of pleasure, my sole life?”–

      Hereat, with many sobs, her gentle strife

      Melted into a languor. He return’d

      Entranced vows and tears.

      Ye who have yearn’d

      With too much passion, will here stay and pity,

      For the mere sake of truth; as ’tis a ditty

      Not of these days, but long ago ’twas told

      By a cavern wind unto a forest old;

      And then the forest told it in a dream

      To a sleeping lake, whose cool and level gleam

      A poet caught as he was journeying

      To Phœbus’ shrine; and in it he did fling

      His weary limbs, bathing an hour’s space,

      And after, straight in that inspired place

      He sang the story up into the air,

      Giving it universal freedom. There

      Has it been ever sounding for those ears

      Whose tips are glowing hot. The legend cheers

      Yon centinel stars; and he who listens to it

      Must surely be self-doomed or he will rue it:

      For quenchless burnings come upon the heart,

      Made fiercer by a fear lest any part

      Should be engulphed in the eddying wind.

      As much as here is penn’d doth always find

      A resting place, thus much comes clear and plain;

      Anon the strange voice is upon the wane–

      And ’tis but echo’d from departing sound,

      That the fair visitant at last unwound

      Her gentle limbs, and left the youth asleep.–

      Thus the tradition of the gusty deep.

      Now turn we to our former chroniclers.–

      Endymion awoke, that grief of hers

      Sweet paining on his ear: he sickly guess’d

      How

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