LITMIR.BIZ

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      And most forlorn upon that widow’d bed

      Sat silently. Love’s madness he had known:

      Often with more than tortured lion’s groan

      Moanings had burst from him; but now that rage

      Had pass’d away: no longer did he wage

      A rough-voic’d war against the dooming stars.

      No, he had felt too much for such harsh jars:

      The lyre of his soul Eolian tun’d

      Forgot all violence, and but commun’d

      With melancholy thought: O he had swoon’d

      Drunken from pleasure’s nipple; and his love

      Henceforth was dove-like.–Loth was he to move

      From the imprinted couch, and when he did,

      ’Twas with slow, languid paces, and face hid

      In muffling hands. So temper’d, out he stray’d

      Half seeing visions that might have dismay’d

      Alecto’s serpents; ravishments more keen

      Than Hermes’ pipe, when anxious he did lean

      Over eclipsing eyes: and at the last

      It was a sounding grotto, vaulted, vast,

      O’er studded with a thousand, thousand pearls,

      And crimson mouthed shells with stubborn curls,

      Of every shape and size, even to the bulk

      In which whales arbour close, to brood and sulk

      Against an endless storm. Moreover too,

      Fish-semblances, of green and azure hue,

      Ready to snort their streams. In this cool wonder

      Endymion sat down, and ‘gan to ponder

      On all his life: his youth, up to the day

      When ‘mid acclaim, and feasts, and garlands gay,

      He stept upon his shepherd throne: the look

      Of his white palace in wild forest nook,

      And all the revels he had lorded there:

      Each tender maiden whom he once thought fair,

      With every friend and fellow-woodlander–

      Pass’d like a dream before him. Then the spur

      Of the old bards to mighty deeds: his plans

      To nurse the golden age ‘mong shepherd clans:

      That wondrous night: the great Pan-festival:

      His sister’s sorrow; and his wanderings all,

      Until into the earth’s deep maw he rush’d:

      Then all its buried magic, till it flush’d

      High with excessive love. “And now,” thought he,

      “How long must I remain in jeopardy

      Of blank amazements that amaze no more?

      Now I have tasted her sweet soul to the core

      All other depths are shallow: essences,

      Once spiritual, are like muddy lees,

      Meant but to fertilize my earthly root,

      And make my branches lift a golden fruit

      Into the bloom of heaven: other light,

      Though it be quick and sharp enough to blight

      The Olympian eagle’s vision, is dark,

      Dark as the parentage of chaos. Hark!

      My silent thoughts are echoing from these shells;

      Or they are but the ghosts, the dying swells

      Of noises far away?–list!”–Hereupon

      He kept an anxious ear. The humming tone

      Came louder, and behold, there as he lay,

      On either side outgush’d, with misty spray,

      A copious spring; and both together dash’d

      Swift, mad, fantastic round the rocks, and lash’d

      Among the conchs and shells of the lofty grot,

      Leaving a trickling dew. At last they shot

      Down from the ceiling’s height, pouring a noise

      As of some breathless racers whose hopes poize

      Upon the last few steps, and with spent force

      Along the ground they took a winding course.

      Endymion follow’d–for it seem’d that one

      Ever pursued, the other strove to shun–

      Follow’d their languid mazes, till well nigh

      He had left thinking of the mystery,–

      And was now rapt in tender hoverings

      Over the vanish’d bliss. Ah! what is it sings

      His dream away? What melodies are these?

      They sound as through the whispering of trees,

      Not native in such barren vaults. Give ear!