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

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in darkness! eclipser

      Of light in light! delicious poisoner!

      Thy venom’d goblet will we quaff until

      We fill–we fill!

      And by thy Mother’s lips—”

      Was heard no more

      For clamour, when the golden palace door

      Opened again, and from without, in shone

      A new magnificence. On oozy throne

      Smooth-moving came Oceanus the old,

      To take a latest glimpse at his sheep-fold,

      Before he went into his quiet cave

      To muse for ever–Then a lucid wave,

      Scoop’d from its trembling sisters of mid-sea,

      Afloat, and pillowing up the majesty

      Of Doris, and the Egean seer, her spouse–

      Next, on a dolphin, clad in laurel boughs,

      Theban Amphion leaning on his lute:

      His fingers went across it–All were mute

      To gaze on Amphitrite, queen of pearls,

      And Thetis pearly too.–

      The palace whirls

      Around giddy Endymion; seeing he

      Was there far strayed from mortality.

      He could not bear it–shut his eyes in vain;

      Imagination gave a dizzier pain.

      “O I shall die! sweet Venus, be my stay!

      Where is my lovely mistress? Well-away!

      I die–I hear her voice–I feel my wing–”

      At Neptune’s feet he sank. A sudden ring

      Of Nereids were about him, in kind strife

      To usher back his spirit into life:

      But still he slept. At last they interwove

      Their cradling arms, and purpos’d to convey

      Towards a crystal bower far away.

      Lo! while slow carried through the pitying crowd,

      To his inward senses these words spake aloud;

      Written in starlight on the dark above:

      Dearest Endymion! my entire love!

      How have I dwelt in fear of fate: ’tis done–

      Immortal bliss for me too hast thou won.

      Arise then! for the hen-dove shall not hatch

      Her ready eggs, before I’ll kissing snatch

      Thee into endless heaven. Awake! awake!

      The youth at once arose: a placid lake

      Came quiet to his eyes; and forest green,

      Cooler than all the wonders he had seen,

      Lull’d with its simple song his fluttering breast.

      How happy once again in grassy nest!

      Endymion Book IV

      Muse of my native land! loftiest Muse!

      O first-born on the mountains! by the hues

      Of heaven on the spiritual air begot:

      Long didst thou sit alone in northern grot,

      While yet our England was a wolfish den;

      Before our forests heard the talk of men;

      Before the first of Druids was a child;–

      Long didst thou sit amid our regions wild

      Rapt in a deep prophetic solitude.

      There came an eastern voice of solemn mood:–

      Yet wast thou patient. Then sang forth the Nine,

      Apollo’s garland:–yet didst thou divine

      Such home-bred glory, that they cry’d in vain,

      “Come hither, Sister of the Island!” Plain

      Spake fair Ausonia; and once more she spake

      A higher summons:–still didst thou betake

      Thee to thy native hopes. O thou hast won

      A full accomplishment! The thing is done,

      Which undone, these our latter days had risen

      On barren souls. Great Muse, thou know’st what prison,

      Of flesh and bone, curbs, and confines, and frets

      Our spirit’s wings: despondency besets

      Our pillows; and the fresh tomorrow morn

      Seems to give forth its light in very scorn

      Of our dull, uninspired, snail-paced lives.

      Long have I said, how happy he who shrives

      To thee! But then I thought on poets gone,

      And could not pray:–nor can I now–so on

      I move to the end in lowliness of heart.–

      “Ah, woe is me! that I should fondly part

      From my dear native land! Ah, foolish maid!

      Glad was the hour, when, with thee, myriads bade

      Adieu to Ganges and their pleasant fields!

      To one so friendless the clear freshet yields

      A bitter coolness; the ripe grape is sour:

      Yet I would have, great gods! but one short hour

      Of native air–let me but die at home.”

      Endymion to heaven’s airy dome

      Was offering up a hecatomb of vows,

      When these words reach’d him. Whereupon he bows

      His head through thorny-green entanglement

      Of underwood, and to the sound is bent,

      Anxious as hind towards her hidden fawn.

      “Is no one near to help me? No fair dawn

      Of life from charitable voice? No sweet saying

      To set my dull and sadden’d spirit playing?

      No hand to toy with mine? No lips so sweet

      That I may worship them? No eyelids meet

      To twinkle on my bosom? No one dies

      Before me, till from these enslaving eyes

      Redemption sparkles!–I am sad and lost.”

      Thou, Carian lord, hadst better have been tost

      Into a whirlpool. Vanish into air,

      Warm mountaineer! for canst thou only bear

      A woman’s sigh alone and in distress?

      See not her charms! Is Phœbe passionless?

      Phœbe is fairer far–O gaze no more:–

      Yet if thou wilt behold all beauty’s store,

      Behold her panting in the forest grass!

      Do not those curls of glossy jet surpass

      For tenderness the arms so idly lain

      Amongst them? Feelest not a kindred pain,

      To see such lovely eyes in swimming search

      After some warm delight, that seems to perch

      Dovelike in the dim cell lying beyond

      Their upper lids?–Hist!

      “O

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