Mapping Keats’s Progress
A Critical Chronology

• 1

• In silent barren synod met
• Within these roofless walls, where yet,
• The shafted arch and carved fret
• Cling to the rain
• The brethren’s skulls mourn, dewy wet,
• Their creed’s undoing.

• 2

• The mitred ones of Nice and Trent
• Were not so tongue-tied — no, they went
• Hot to their Councils, scarce content
• With orthodoxy;
• But ye, poor tongueless things, were meant
• To speak by proxy.

• 3

• Your chronicles no more exist,
• Since Knox, the revolutionist,
• Destroy’d the work of every fist
• That scrawl’d black letter;
• Well! I’m a craniologist,
• And may do better.

• 4

• This skull-cap wore the cowl from sloth,
• Or discontent, perhaps from both;
• And yet one day, against his oath,
• He tried escaping,
• For men, though idle, may be loth
• To live on gaping.

• 5

• A toper this! he plied his glass
• More strictly than he said the mass,
• And lov’d to see a tempting lass,
• Come to confession
• Letting her absolution pass
• O’er fresh transgression.

• 6

• This crawl’d through life in feebleness,
• Boasting he never knew excess,
• Cursing those crimes he scarce could guess,
• Or feel but faintly,
• With prayers that heaven would cease to bless
• Men so unsaintly.

• 7

• Here’s a true churchman! he’d affect
• Much charity, and ne’er neglect
• To pray for mercy on th’ elect
• But thought no evil
• In sending heathen, Turk, and sect
• All to the devil!

• 8

• Poor skull, thy fingers set ablaze,
• With silver saint in golden rays,
• The holy missal; thou did’st craze
• ’Mid bead and spangle,
• While others pass’d their idle days
• In coil and wrangle.

• 9

• Long time this sconce a helmet wore,
• But sickness smites the conscience sore;
• He broke his sword, and hither bore
• His gear and plunder,
• Took to the cowl, — then rav’d and swore
• At his damn’d blunder!

• 10

• This lily-colour’d skull, with all
• The teeth complete, so white and small,
• Belong’d to one whose early pall
• A lover shaded;
• He died ere superstition’s gall
• His heart invaded.

• 11

• Ha! here is “undivulged crime”!
• Despair forbad his soul to climb
• Beyond this world, this mortal time
• Of fever’d sadness,
• Until their monkish pantomime
• Dazzled his madness!

• 12

• A younger brother this! a man
• Aspiring as a Tartar khan,
• But, curb’d and baffled, he began
• The trade of frightening;
• It smack’d of power! — and here he ran
• To deal heaven’s lightening.

• 13

• This ideot-skull belong’d to one,
• A buried miser’s only son,
• Who, penitent ere he’d begun,
• To taste of pleasure,
• And hoping heaven’s dread wrath to shun
• Gave hell his treasure.

• 14

• Here is the forehead of an ape,
• A robber’s mark, —and near the nape
• That bone, fie on’t, bears just the shape
• Of carnal passion;
• Ah! he was one for theft and rape
• In monkish fashion!

• 15

• This was the porter! — he could sing,
• Or dance, or play, do any thing,
• And what the friars bade him bring,
• They ne’er were balk’d of;
• Matters not worth remembering,
• And seldom talk’d of.

• 16

• Enough! why need I further pore?
• This corner holds at least a score,
• And yonder twice as many more
• Of reverend brothers;
• ’Tis the same story o’er and o’er, —
• They’re like the others!

1

• St. Agnes’ Eve-Ah, bitter chill it was!
• The owl, for all it his feathers, was a-cold;
• The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass,
• And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
• Numb were the Beadsman’s fingers, while he told
• His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
• Like pious incense from a censer old,
• Seem’d taking flight for heaven, without a death,
• Past the sweet Virgin’s picture, while his prayer he saith.

2

• His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man;
• Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees,
• And back returnth, meagre, barefoot, wan,
• Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees:
• The sculptur’d dead, on each side, seem to freeze,
• Emprison’d in black, purgatorial rails:
• Knights, ladies, praying in dumb orat’ries,
• He passeth by; and his weak spirit fails
• To think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails.

3

• Northward he turneth through a little door,
• And scarce three steps, ere Music’s golden tongue
• Flatter’d to the tears this aged man and poor;
• But no-already had his deathbell rung;
• The joys of all his life were said and sung:
• His was harsh penance on St. Agnes’ Eve:
• Another way he went,and soon among
• Rough ashes sat he for his soul’s reprieve,
• And all night kept awake, for sinners’ sake to grieve

4

• The ancient Beadsman heard the prelude soft;
• And so it chanc’d, for many a door was wide,
• From a hurry to and fro. Soon, up aloft,
• The silver, snarling trumpets’ gan to chide:
• The level chambers,ready with their pride,
• Were glowing to receive a thousand guests:
• The carved angels, ever eager-eyed,
• Star’d, where upon their heads the cornice rests,
• With hair blown back, and wings put cross-wise on their breasts.

5

• At length burst in the argent revelry,
• With plume, tiara, and all rich array,
• Numerous as the shadows haunting fairily
• The brain, new stuff’d, in youth, with triumphs gay
• Of old romance. These let us wish away,
• And turn, sole-thoughted, to one Lady there,
• Whose heart had brooded, all that wintry day,
• On love, and wing’d St. Agnes’ saintly care,
• As she had heard old dames full many times declare.

6

• They told her how, upon St. Agnes’ Eve,
• Young virgins might have visions of delight,
• And soft adorings from their loves receive
• Upon the honey’d middle of the night,
• If the ceremonies due they did aright;
• As, supperless to bed they must retire,
• And couch supine their beauties, lily white;
• Nor look behind, nor sideways, but require
• Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire.

7

• Full of this whim was thoughtful Madeline:
• The music, yearning like a God in pain,
• She scarcely heard: her maiden eyes divine,
• Fix’d on the floor, saw many a sweeping train
• Pass by - she heeded not at all: in vain
• Came many a tiptoe,amorous cavalier,
• And back retir’d; not cool’d by high disdain,
• But she saw not: her heart was otherwhere:
• She sigh’d for Agnes’ dreams, the sweetest of the year.

8

• She danc’d along with vague, regardless eyes,
• Anxious lips, her breathing quick and short:
• The hallow’d hour was near at hand: she sighs
• Amid the timbrels, and the throng’d resort
• Of whisperers in anger, or in sport;
• ‘Mid looks of love, defiance, hate and scorn,
• Hoodwink’d with faery fancy; all amort,
• Save to St. Agnes and her lambs unshorn,
• And all the bliss to be before to-morrow morn.

9

• So, purposing each moment to retire,
• She linger’d still. Meantime,across the moors,
• Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fire
• For Madeline. Beside the portal doors,
• Buttress’d from moonlight, stands he, and implores
• All saints to give him sight of Madeline,
• But for one moment in the tedious hours,
• That he might gaze and worship all unseen;
• Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss - in sooth such thing have been.

10

• He ventures in: let no buzz’d whisper tell:
• All eyes be muffled, or a hundred swords
• Will storm his heart, Love’s fev’rous citadel:
• For him, those chambers held barbarian hordes,
• Hyena foeman, and hot-blooded lords,
• Whose very dogs would execrations howl
• Against his lineage: not one breast affords
• Him any mercy, in that mansion foul,
• Save one old beldame, weak in body and soul.

11

• Ah, happy chance! the aged creature came,
• Shuffling along with ivory-headed wand,
• To where he stood, hid from the torch’s flame,
• Behind a broad half-pillar, far beyond
• The sound of merriment and chorus bland:
• He startled her; but soon she knew his face,
• And grasp’s his fingers in her palsied hand,
• Saying, ″Mercy, Porphyro! hie thee from this place;
• They are all here to-night, the whole bloody thirsty race!

12

• ″Get hence! get hence! there’s dwarfish Hildebrand;
• He had a fever late, and in the fit
• He cursed three and thine, both the house and land:
• Then there’s that old Lord Maurice, not a whit
• More tame for his gray hairs- Alas me! flit!
• Flit like a ghost away. Ah,″-‶ Gossip dear,
• We’re safe enough; here in this arm-chair sit,
• And tell me how″-‶Good Saints! not here, not here;
• Follow me,child, or else these stones will be thy bier.‶

13

• He follow’d through a lowly arched way,
• Brushing the cobwebs with his lofty plume,
• And as she mutter’d ″Well-a-well-a-day!″
• He found him in a little moonlight room,
• Pale, lattic’d, chill, and silent as a tomb.
• ″Now tell me, where is Madeline,″ said he,
• ″O tell me, Angela, by the holy loom
• Which non but secret sisterhood may see,
• When they St. Agnes’ wool are we having piously.″

14

• ″St. Agnes! Ah! it is St. Agnes’ Eve-
• Yet men will murder upon holy days:
• Thou must hold water in a witch’ s sieve,
• And be liege-lord of all the Elves and Fays,
• To venture so: it fills me with amaze
• To see thee, Porphyro! - St. Agnes’ Eve!
• God’s help! my lady fair the conjuror plays
• This very night: good angels her deceive!
• But let me laugh awhile, I’ve mickle time to grieve.″

15

• Feebly she laugheth in the languid moon,
• While Porphyro upon her face doth look,
• Like puzzled urchin on an aged crone
• Who keepeth clos’d a wond’rous riddle-book,
• As spectacled she sits in chimney nook.
• But soon his eyes grew brilliant, when she told
• His lady’s purpose; and he scarce could brook
• Tears, at the thought of those enchantments cold,
• And Madeline asleep in lap of legends old.

16

• Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose,
• Flushing his brow, and in his painted heart
• Made purple riot: then doth he purpose
• A stratagem, that makes the beldame start:
• “A cruel man and impious thou art:
• Sweet lady, let her pray, and sleep and dream
• Alone with her good angles, far apart
• From wicked men like thee. Go, go!-I deem
• Thou canst not surely be the same that thou didst seem.”

17

• “I will not harm her, by all the saints I swear,‶
• Quoth Porphyro: ″O may I ne′er find grace
• When my weak voice shall whisper its last prayer,
• If one of her soft ringlets I displace,
• Or look with ruffian passion in her face:
• Good Angela, believe me by these tears;
• Or will, even in a moment′s space,
• Awake, with horrid shout, my foemen′s ears,
• And beard them, though they be more fang′d than wolves and bears.”

18

• “Ah! why wilt thou affright a feeble soul?
• A poor, weak, palsy-stricken, churchyard thing,
• Whose passing-bell may ere the midnight toll;
• Whose prayers for thee, each morn and evening,
• Were never miss’d” - Thus plaining, doth she bring
• A gentler speech from burning Porphyro;
• So woful, and of such deep sorrowing,
• That Angela gives promise she will do
• Whatever he shall wish, betide her weal or woe.

19

• Which was, to lead him, in close secrecy,
• Even to Madeline’s chamber, and there hide
• Him in closet, of such privacy
• That he might see her beauty unespy’d,
• And win perhaps that night a peerless bride,
• While legion’d faeries pac’d the coverlet,
• And pale enchantment held her sleepy-eyed.
• Never on such a night have lovers met,
• Since Merlin paid his Demon all the monstrous debt.

20

• “It shall be as thou wishest,” said the Dame:
• “All cates and dainties shall be stored there
• Quickly on this feast-night: by the tambour frame
• Her own lute thou wilt see: no time to spare,
• For I am slow and feeble, and scarce dare
• On such a catering trust my dizzy head.
• Wait here, my child, with patience; kneel in prayer
• The while: Ah! thou must needs the lady wed,
• Or may I never leave my grave among the dead.”

21

• So saying, she hobbled off with busy fear.
• The lover’s endless minutes slowly pass’d;
• The dame return’d, and whisper’d in his ear
• To follow her; with aged eyes aghast
• From fright of dim espial. Safe at last,
• Through many a dusky gallery, they gain
• The maiden’s chamber, silken, hush’d, and chaste;
• Where Porphyro took covert, pleas’d amain.
• His poor guide hurried back with agues in her brain.

22

• Her falt’ring hand upon the balustrade,
• Old Angela was feeling for the stair,
• When Madeline, St. Agnes’ charmed maid,
• Rose, like a mission’d spirit, unaware:
• With silver taper’s light, and pious care,
• She turn’d, and down the aged gossip led
• To a safe level matting. Now prepare,
• Young Porphyro, for gazing on that bed;
• She comes, she comes again, like ring-dove fray’d and fled.

23

• Out went the taper as she hurried in;
• Its little smoke, in pallid moonshine, died:
• She clos’d the door, she panted, all akin
• To spirits of the air, and visions wide:
• No uttered syllable, or, woe betide!
• But to her heart, her heart was voluble,
• Paining with eloquence her balmy side;
• As though a tongueless nightingale should swell
• Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell.

24

• A casement high and triple-arch’d there was,
• All garlanded with carven imag’ries
• Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,
• And diamonded with panes of quaint device,
• Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,
• As are the tiger-moth’s deep-damask’d wings;
• And in the midst, ‘mong thousand heraldries,
• And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,
• A shielded scutcheon blush’d with blood of queens and kings.

25

• Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,
• And threw warm gules on Madeline’s fair breast,
• As down she knelt for heaven’s grace and boon;
• Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,
• And on her silver cross soft amethyst,
• And on her hair a glory, like a saint:
• She seem’d a splendid angel, newly drest,
• Save wings, for heaven:—Porphyro grew faint:
• She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.

26

• Anon his heart revives: her vespers done,
• Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;
• Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;
• Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degrees
• Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees:
• Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed,
• Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees,
• In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed,
• But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled.

27

• Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest,
• In sort of wakeful swoon, perplex’d she lay,
• Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppress’d
• Her soothed limbs, and soul fatigued away;
• Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day;
• Blissfully haven’d both from joy and pain;
• Clasp’d like a missal where swart Paynims pray;
• Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain,
• As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again.

28

• Stol’n to this paradise, and so entranced,
• Porphyro gaz’d upon her empty dress,
• And listen’d to her breathing, if it chanced
• To wake into a slumberous tenderness;
• Which when he heard, that minute did he bless,
• And breath’d himself: then from the closet crept,
• Noiseless as fear in a wide wilderness,
• And over the hush’d carpet, silent, stept,
• And ‘tween the curtains peep’d, where, lo!—how fast she slept.

29

• Then by the bed-side, where the faded moon
• Made a dim, silver twilight, soft he set
• A table, and, half anguish’d, threw thereon
• A cloth of woven crimson, gold, and jet:—
• O for some drowsy Morphean amulet!
• The boisterous, midnight, festive clarion,
• The kettle-drum, and far-heard clarinet,
• Affray his ears, though but in dying tone:—
• The hall door shuts again, and all the noise is gone.

30

• And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep,
• In blanched linen, smooth, and lavender’d,
• While he forth from the closet brought a heap
• Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd;
• With jellies soother than the creamy curd,
• And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon;
• Manna and dates, in argosy transferr’d
• From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one,
• From silken Samarcand to cedar’d Lebanon.

31

• These delicates he heap’d with glowing hand
• On golden dishes and in baskets bright
• Of wreathed silver: sumptuous they stand
• In the retired quiet of the night,
• Filling the chilly room with perfume light.—
• “And now, my love, my seraph fair, awake!
• Thou art my heaven, and I thine eremite:
• Open thine eyes, for meek St. Agnes’ sake,
• Or I shall drowse beside thee, so my soul doth ache.”

32

• Thus whispering, his warm, unnerved arm
• Sank in her pillow. Shaded was her dream
• By the dusk curtains:—’twas a midnight charm
• Impossible to melt as iced stream:
• The lustrous salvers in the moonlight gleam;
• Broad golden fringe upon the carpet lies:
• It seem’d he never, never could redeem
• From such a stedfast spell his lady’s eyes;
• So mus’d awhile, entoil’d in woofed phantasies.

33

• Awakening up, he took her hollow lute,—
• Tumultuous,—and, in chords that tenderest be,
• He play’d an ancient ditty, long since mute,
• In Provence call’d, “La belle dame sans mercy”:
• Close to her ear touching the melody;—
• Wherewith disturb’d, she utter’d a soft moan:
• He ceas’d—she panted quick—and suddenly
• Her blue affrayed eyes wide open shone:
• Upon his knees he sank, pale as smooth-sculptured stone.

34

• Her eyes were open, but she still beheld,
• Now wide awake, the vision of her sleep:
• There was a painful change, that nigh expell’d
• The blisses of her dream so pure and deep
• At which fair Madeline began to weep,
• And moan forth witless words with many a sigh;
• While still her gaze on Porphyro would keep;
• Who knelt, with joined hands and piteous eye,
• Fearing to move or speak, she look’d so dreamingly.

35

• “Ah, Porphyro!” said she, “but even now
• Thy voice was at sweet tremble in mine ear,
• Made tuneable with every sweetest vow;
• And those sad eyes were spiritual and clear:
• How chang’d thou art! how pallid, chill, and drear!
• Give me that voice again, my Porphyro,
• Those looks immortal, those complainings dear!
• Oh leave me not in this eternal woe,
• For if thy diest, my Love, I know not where to go.”

36

• Beyond a mortal man impassion’d far
• At these voluptuous accents, he arose
• Ethereal, flush’d, and like a throbbing star
• Seen mid the sapphire heaven’s deep repose;
• Into her dream he melted, as the rose
• Blendeth its odour with the violet,—
• Solution sweet: meantime the frost-wind blows
• Like Love’s alarum pattering the sharp sleet
• Against the window-panes; St. Agnes’ moon hath set.

37

• ‘Tis dark: quick pattereth the flaw-blown sleet:
• “This is no dream, my bride, my Madeline!”
• ‘Tis dark: the iced gusts still rave and beat:
• “No dream, alas! alas! and woe is mine!
• Porphyro will leave me here to fade and pine.—
• Cruel! what traitor could thee hither bring?
• I curse not, for my heart is lost in thine,
• Though thou forsakest a deceived thing;—
• A dove forlorn and lost with sick unpruned wing.”

38

• “My Madeline! sweet dreamer! lovely bride!
• Say, may I be for aye thy vassal blest?
• Thy beauty’s shield, heart-shap’d and vermeil dyed?
• Ah, silver shrine, here will I take my rest
• After so many hours of toil and quest,
• A famish’d pilgrim,—sav’d by miracle.
• Though I have found, I will not rob thy nest
• Saving of thy sweet self; if thou think’st well
• To trust, fair Madeline, to no rude infidel.

39

• “Hark! ‘tis an elfin-storm from faery land,
• Of haggard seeming, but a boon indeed:
• Arise—arise! the morning is at hand;—
• The bloated wassaillers will never heed:—
• Let us away, my love, with happy speed;
• There are no ears to hear, or eyes to see,—
• Drown’d all in Rhenish and the sleepy mead:
• Awake! arise! my love, and fearless be,
• For o’er the southern moors I have a home for thee.”

40

• She hurried at his words, beset with fears,
• For there were sleeping dragons all around,
• At glaring watch, perhaps, with ready spears—
• Down the wide stairs a darkling way they found.—
• In all the house was heard no human sound.
• A chain-droop’d lamp was flickering by each door;
• The arras, rich with horseman, hawk, and hound,
• Flutter’d in the besieging wind’s uproar;
• And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor.

41

• They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall;
• Like phantoms, to the iron porch, they glide;
• Where lay the Porter, in uneasy sprawl,
• With a huge empty flaggon by his side:
• The wakeful bloodhound rose, and shook his hide,
• But his sagacious eye an inmate owns:
• By one, and one, the bolts full easy slide:—
• The chains lie silent on the footworn stones;—
• The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groans.

42

• And they are gone: ay, ages long ago
• These lovers fled away into the storm.
• That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe,
• And all his warrior-guests, with shade and form
• Of witch, and demon, and large coffin-worm,
• Were long be-nightmar’d. Angela the old
• Died palsy-twitch’d, with meagre face deform;
• The Beadsman, after thousand aves told,
• For aye unsought for slept among his ashes cold.

1

• Fair Isabel, poor simple Isabel!
• Lorenzo, a young palmer in Love’s eye!
• They could not in the self-same mansion dwell
• Without some stir of heart, some malady;
• They could not sit at meals but feel how well
• It soothed each to be the other by;
• They could not, sure, beneath the same roof sleep
• But to each other dream, and nightly weep.

2

• With every morn their love grew tenderer,
• With every eve deeper and tenderer still;
• He might not in house, field, or garden stir,
• But her full shape would all his seeing fill;
• And his continual voice was pleasanter
• To her, than noise of trees or hidden rill;
• Her lute-string gave an echo of his name,
• She spoilt her half-done broidery with the same.

3

• He knew whose gentle hand was at the latch,
• Before the door had given her to his eyes;
• And from her chamber-window he would catch
• Her beauty farther than the falcon spies;
• And constant as her vespers would he watch,
• Because her face was turn’d to the same skies;
• And with sick longing all the night outwear,
• To hear her morning-step upon the stair.

4

• A whole long month of May in this sad plight
• Made their cheeks paler by the break of June:
• “To-morrow will I bow to my delight,
• To-morrow will I ask my lady’s boon. ” —
• “O may I never see another night,
• Lorenzo, if thy lips breathe not love’s tune. ” —
• So spake they to their pillows; but, alas,
• Honeyless days and days did he let pass;

5

• Until sweet Isabella’s untouch’d cheek
• Fell sick within the rose’s just domain,
• Fell thin as a young mother’s, who doth seek
• By every lull to cool her infant’s pain:
• “How ill she is, ” said he, “ I may not speak,
• And yet I will, and tell my love all plain:
• If looks speak love-laws, I will drink her tears,
• And at the least ’twill startle off her cares.”

6

• So said he one fair morning, and all day
• His heart beat awfully against his side;
• And to his heart he inwardly did pray
• For power to speak; but still the ruddy tide
• Stifled his voice, and puls’d resolve away —
• Fever’d his high conceit of such a bride,
• Yet brought him to the meekness of a child:
• Alas! when passion is both meek and wild!

7

• So once more he had wak’d and anguished
• A dreary night of love and misery,
• If Isabel’s quick eye had not been wed
• To every symbol on his forehead high;
• She saw it waxing very pale and dead,
• And straight all flush’d; so, lisped tenderly,
• “Lorenzo! ” — here she ceas’d her timid quest,
• But in her tone and look he read the rest.

8

• “O Isabella, I can half perceive
• That I may speak my grief into thine ear;
• If thou didst ever any thing believe,
• Believe how I love thee, believe how near
• My soul is to its doom: I would not grieve
• Thy hand by unwelcome pressing, would not fear
• Thine eyes by gazing; but I cannot live
• Another night, and not my passion shrive.

9

• “Love! thou art leading me from wintry cold,
• Lady! thou leadest me to summer clime,
• And I must taste the blossoms that unfold
• In its ripe warmth this gracious morning time.”
• So said, his erewhile timid lips grew bold,
• And poesied with hers in dewy rhyme:
• Great bliss was with them, and great happiness
• Grew, like a lusty flower in June’s caress.

10

• Parting they seem’d to tread upon the air,
• Twin roses by the zephyr blown apart
• Only to meet again more close, and share
• The inward fragrance of each other’s heart.
• She, to her chamber gone, a ditty fair
• Sang, of delicious love and honey’d dart;
• He with light steps went up a western hill,
• And bade the sun farewell, and joy’d his fill.

11

• All close they met again, before the dusk
• Had taken from the stars its pleasant veil,
• All close they met, all eves, before the dusk
• Had taken from the stars its pleasant veil
• Close in a bower of hyacinth and musk,
• Unknown of any, free from whispering tale.
• Ah! better had it been for ever so,
• Than idle ears should pleasure in their woe.

12

• Were they unhappy then? — It cannot be —
• Too many tears for lovers have been shed,
• Too many sighs give we to them in fee,
• Too much of pity after they are dead,
• Too many doleful stories do we see,
• Whose matter in bright gold were best be read;
• Except in such a page where Theseus’ spouse
• Over the pathless waves towards him bows.

13

• But, for the general award of love,
• The little sweet doth kill much bitterness;
• Though Dido silent is in under-grove,
• And Isabella’s was a great distress,
• Though young Lorenzo in warm Indian clove
• Was not embalm’d, this truth is not the less —
• Even bees, the little almsmen of spring-bowers,
• Know there is richest juice in poison-flowers.

14

• With her two brothers this fair lady dwelt,
• Enriched from ancestral merchandize,
• And for them many a weary hand did swelt
• In torched mines and noisy factories,
• And many once proud-quiver’d loins did melt
• In blood from stinging whip; — with hollow eyes
• Many all day in dazzling river stood,
• To take the rich-ored driftings of the flood.

15

• For them the Ceylon diver held his breath,
• And went all naked to the hungry shark;
• For them his ears gush’d blood; for them in death
• The seal on the cold ice with piteous bark
• Lay full of darts; for them alone did seethe
• A thousand men in troubles wide and dark:
• Half-ignorant, they turn’d an easy wheel,
• That set sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel.

16

• Why were they proud? Because their marble founts
• Gush’d with more pride than do a wretch’s tears? —
• Why were they proud? Because fair orange-mounts
• Were of more soft ascent than lazar stairs? —
• Why were they proud? Because red-lin’d accounts
• Were richer than the songs of Grecian years? —
• Why were they proud? again we ask aloud,
• Why in the name of Glory were they proud?

17

• Yet were these Florentines as self-retired
• In hungry pride and gainful cowardice,
• As two close Hebrews in that land inspired,
• Paled in and vineyarded from beggar-spies;
• The hawks of ship-mast forests — the untired
• And pannier’d mules for ducats and old lies — .
• Quick cat’s-paws on the generous stray-away, —
• Great wits in Spanish, Tuscan, and Malay.

18

• How was it these same ledger-men could spy
• Fair Isabella in her downy nest?
• How could they find out in Lorenzo’s eye
• A straying from his toil? Hot Egypt’s pest
• Into their vision covetous and sly!
• How could these money-bags see east and west? —
• Yet so they did — and every dealer fair
• Must see behind, as doth the hunted hare.

19

• O eloquent and famed Boccaccio!
• Of thee we now should ask forgiving boon,
• And of thy spicy myrtles as they blow,
• And of thy roses amorous of the moon,
• And of thy lilies, that do paler grow
• Now they can no more hear thy ghittern’s tune,
• For venturing syllables that ill beseem
• The quiet glooms of such a piteous theme.

20

• Grant thou a pardon here, and then the tale
• Shall move on soberly, as it is meet;
• There is no other crime, no mad assail
• To make old prose in modern rhyme more sweet:
• But it is done — succeed the verse or fail —
• To honour thee, and thy gone spirit greet;
• To stead thee as a verse in English tongue,
• An echo of thee in the north-wind sung.

21

• These brethren having found by many signs
• What love Lorenzo for their sister had,
• And how she lov’d him too, each unconfines
• His bitter thoughts to other, well nigh mad
• That he, the servant of their trade designs,
• Should in their sister’s love be blithe and glad,
• When ’twas their plan to coax her by degrees
• To some high noble and his olive-trees.

22

• And many a jealous conference had they,
• And many times they bit their lips alone,
• Before they fix’d upon a surest way
• To make the youngster for his crime atone;
• And at the last, these men of cruel clay
• Cut Mercy with a sharp knife to the bone;
• For they resolved in some forest dim
• To kill Lorenzo, and there bury him.

23

• So on a pleasant morning, as he leant
• Into the sun-rise, o’er the balustrade
• Of the garden-terrace, towards him they bent
• Their footing through the dews; and to him said,
• “You seem there in the quiet of content,
• Lorenzo, and we are most loth to invade
• Calm speculation; but if you are wise,
• Bestride your steed while cold is in the skies.

24

• “To-day we purpose, ay, this hour we mount
• To spur three leagues towards the Apennine;
• Come down, we pray thee, ere the hot sun count
• His dewy rosary on the eglantine.”
• Lorenzo, courteously as he was wont,
• Bow’d a fair greeting to these serpents’ whine;
• And went in haste, to get in readiness,
• With belt, and spur, and bracing huntsman’s dress.

25

• And as he to the court-yard pass’d along,
• Each third step did he pause, and listen’d oft
• If he could hear his lady’s matin-song,
• Or the light whisper of her footstep soft;
• And as he thus over his passion hung,
• He heard a laugh full musical aloft;
• When, looking up, he saw her features bright
• Smile through an in-door lattice, all delight.

26

• “Love, Isabel!” said he, “I was in pain
• Lest I should miss to bid thee a good morrow:
• Ah! what if I should lose thee, when so fain
• I am to stifle all the heavy sorrow
• Of a poor three hours’ absence? but we’ll gain
• Out of the amorous dark what day doth borrow.
• Good bye! I’ll soon be back.” — “Good bye!” said she —
• And as he went she chanted merrily.

27

• So the two brothers and their murder’d man
• Rode past fair Florence, to where Arno’s stream
• Gurgles through straiten’d banks, and still doth fan
• Itself with dancing bulrush, and the bream
• Keeps head against the freshets. Sick and wan
• The brothers’ faces in the ford did seem,
• Lorenzo’s flush with love. — They pass’d the water
• Into a forest quiet for the slaughter.

28

• There was Lorenzo slain and buried in,
• There in that forest did his great love cease;
• Ah! when a soul doth thus its freedom win,
• It aches in loneliness — is ill at peace
• As the break-covert blood-hounds of such sin:
• They dipp’d their swords in the water, and did tease
• Their horses homeward, with convulsed spur,
• Each richer by his being a murderer.

29

• They told their sister how, with sudden speed,
• Lorenzo had ta’en ship for foreign lands,
• Because of some great urgency and need
• In their affairs, requiring trusty hands.
• Poor Girl! put on thy stifling widow’s weed,
• And ’scape at once from Hope’s accursed bands;
• To-day thou wilt not see him, nor to-morrow,
• And the next day will be a day of sorrow.

30

• She weeps alone for pleasures not to be;
• Sorely she wept until the night came on,
• And then, instead of love, O misery!
• She brooded o’er the luxury alone:
• His image in the dusk she seem’d to see,
• And to the silence made a gentle moan,
• Spreading her perfect arms upon the air,
• And on her couch low murmuring “Where? O where?”

31

• But Selfishness, Love’s cousin, held not long
• Its fiery vigil in her single breast;
• She fretted for the golden hour, and hung
• Upon the time with feverish unrest —
• Not long — for soon into her heart a throng
• Of higher occupants, a richer zest,
• Came tragic; passion not to be subdued,
• And sorrow for her love in travels rude.

32

• In the mid days of autumn, on their eves,
• The breath of Winter comes from far away,
• And the sick west continually bereaves
• Of some gold tinge, and plays a roundelay
• Of death among the bushes and the leaves
• To make all bare before he dares to stray
• From his north cavern. So sweet Isabel
• By gradual decay from beauty fell,

33

• Because Lorenzo came not. Oftentimes
• She ask’d her brothers, with an eye all pale,
• Striving to be itself, what dungeon climes
• Could keep him off so long? They spake a tale
• Time after time, to quiet her. Their crimes
• Came on them, like a smoke from Hinnom’s vale;
• And every night in dreams they groan’d aloud,
• To see their sister in her snowy shroud.

34

• And she had died in drowsy ignorance,
• But for a thing more deadly dark than all;
• It came like a fierce potion, drunk by chance,
• Which saves a sick man from the feather’d pall
• For some few gasping moments; like a lance,
• Waking an Indian from his cloudy hall
• With cruel pierce, and bringing him again
• Sense of the gnawing fire at heart and brain.

35

• It was a vision. — In the drowsy gloom,
• The dull of midnight, at her couch’s foot
• Lorenzo stood, and wept: the forest tomb
• Had marr’d his glossy hair which once could shoot
• Lustre into the sun, and put cold doom
• Upon his lips, and taken the soft lute
• From his lorn voice, and past his loamed ears
• Had made a miry channel for his tears.

36

• Strange sound it was, when the pale shadow spake;
• For there was striving, in its piteous tongue,
• To speak as when on earth it was awake,
• And Isabella on its music hung:
• Languor there was in it, and tremulous shake,
• As in a palsied Druid’s harp unstrung;
• And through it moan’d a ghostly under-song,
• Like hoarse night-gusts sepulchral briars among.

37

• Its eyes, though wild, were still all dewy bright
• With love, and kept all phantom fear aloof
• From the poor girl by magic of their light,
• The while it did unthread the horrid woof
• Of the late darken’d time, — the murderous spite
• Of pride and avarice, — the dark pine roof
• In the forest, — and the sodden turfed dell,
• Where, without any word, from stabs he fell.

38

• Saying moreover, “Isabel, my sweet!
• Red whortle-berries droop above my head,
• And a large flint-stone weighs upon my feet;
• Around me beeches and high chestnuts shed
• Their leaves and prickly nuts; a sheep-fold bleat
• Comes from beyond the river to my bed:
• Go, shed one tear upon my heather-bloom,
• And it shall comfort me within the tomb.

39

• “I am a shadow now, alas! alas!
• Upon the skirts of Human-nature dwelling
• Alone: I chant alone the holy mass,
• While little sounds of life are round me knelling,
• And glossy bees at noon do fieldward pass,
• And many a chapel bell the hour is telling,
• Paining me through: those sounds grow strange to me,
• And thou art distant in Humanity.

40

• “I know what was, I feel full well what is,
• And I should rage, if spirits could go mad;
• Though I forget the taste of earthly bliss,
• That paleness warms my grave, as though I had
• A Seraph chosen from the bright abyss
• To be my spouse: thy paleness makes me glad;
• Thy beauty grows upon me, and I feel
• A greater love through all my essence steal.”

41

• The Spirit mourn’d “Adieu!” — dissolv’d, and left
• The atom darkness in a slow turmoil;
• As when of healthful midnight sleep bereft,
• Thinking on rugged hours and fruitless toil,
• We put our eyes into a pillowy cleft,
• And see the spangly gloom froth up and boil:
• It made sad Isabella’s eyelids ache,
• And in the dawn she started up awake;

42

• “Ha! ha! ” said she, “ I knew not this hard life,
• I thought the worst was simple misery;
• I thought some Fate with pleasure or with strife
• Portion’d us — happy days, or else to die;
• But there is crime — a brother’s bloody knife!
• Sweet Spirit, thou hast school’d my infancy:
• I’ll visit thee for this, and kiss thine eyes,
• And greet thee morn and even in the skies.”

43

• When the full morning came, she had devised
• How she might secret to the forest hie;
• How she might find the clay, so dearly prized,
• And sing to it one latest lullaby;
• How her short absence might be unsurmised,
• While she the inmost of the dream would try.
• Resolv’d, she took with her an aged nurse,
• And went into that dismal forest-hearse.

44

• See, as they creep along the river side,
• How she doth whisper to that aged Dame,
• And, after looking round the champaign wide,
• Shows her a knife. — “What feverous hectic flame
• “Burns in thee, child? — What good can thee betide,
• That thou should’st smile again?” — The evening came,
• And they had found Lorenzo’s earthy bed;
• The flint was there, the berries at his head.

45

• Who hath not loiter’d in a green church-yard,
• And let his spirit, like a demon-mole,
• Work through the clayey soil and gravel hard,
• To see scull, coffin’d bones, and funeral stole;
• Pitying each form that hungry Death hath marr’d,
• And filling it once more with human soul?
• Ah! this is holiday to what was felt
• When Isabella by Lorenzo knelt.

46

• She gaz’d into the fresh-thrown mould, as though
• One glance did fully all its secrets tell;
• Clearly she saw, as other eyes would know
• Pale limbs at bottom of a crystal well;
• Upon the murderous spot she seem’d to grow,
• Like to a native lily of the dell:
• Then with her knife, all sudden, she began
• To dig more fervently than misers can.

47

• Soon she turn’d up a soiled glove, whereon
• Her silk had play’d in purple phantasies,
• She kiss’d it with a lip more chill than stone,
• And put it in her bosom, where it dries
• And freezes utterly unto the bone
• Those dainties made to still an infant’s cries:
• Then ’gan she work again; nor stay’d her care,
• But to throw back at times her veiling hair.

48

• That old nurse stood beside her wondering,
• Until her heart felt pity to the core
• At sight of such a dismal labouring,
• And so she kneeled, with her locks all hoar,
• And put her lean hands to the horrid thing:
• Three hours they labour’d at this travail sore;
• At last they felt the kernel of the grave,
• And Isabella did not stamp and rave.

49

• Ah! wherefore all this wormy circumstance?
• Why linger at the yawning tomb so long?
• O for the gentleness of old Romance,
• The simple plaining of a minstrel’s song!
• Fair reader, at the old tale take a glance,
• For here, in truth, it doth not well belong
• To speak: — O turn thee to the very tale,
• And taste the music of that vision pale.

50

• With duller steel than the Persean sword
• They cut away no formless monster’s head,
• But one, whose gentleness did well accord
• With death, as life. The ancient harps have said,
• Love never dies, but lives, immortal Lord:
• If Love impersonate was ever dead,
• Pale Isabella kiss’d it, and low moan’d.
• ’Twas love; cold, — dead indeed, but not dethroned.

51

• In anxious secrecy they took it home,
• And then the prize was all for Isabel:
• She calm’d its wild hair with a golden comb,
• And all around each eye’s sepulchral cell
• Pointed each fringed lash; the smeared loam
• With tears, as chilly as a dripping well,
• She drench’d away: — and still she comb’d, and kept
• Sighing all day — and still she kiss’d, and wept.

52

• Then in a silken scarf, — sweet with the dews
• Of precious flowers pluck’d in Araby,
• And divine liquids come with odorous ooze
• Through the cold serpent-pipe refreshfully, —
• She wrapp’d it up; and for its tomb did choose
• A garden-pot, wherein she laid it by,
• And cover’d it with mould, and o’er it set
• Sweet basil, which her tears kept ever wet.

53

• And she forgot the stars, the moon, and sun,
• And she forgot the blue above the trees,
• And she forgot the dells where waters run,
• And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze;
• She had no knowledge when the day was done,
• And the new morn she saw not: but in peace
• Hung over her sweet basil evermore,
• And moisten’d it with tears unto the core.

54

• And so she ever fed it with thin tears,
• Whence thick, and green, and beautiful it grew,
• So that it smelt more balmy than its peers
• Of basil-tufts in Florence; for it drew
• Nurture besides, and life, from human fears,
• From the fast mouldering head there shut from view:
• So that the jewel, safely casketed,
• Came forth, and in perfumed leafits spread.

55

• O Melancholy, linger here awhile!
• O Music, Music, breathe despondingly!
• O Echo, Echo, from some sombre isle,
• Unknown, Lethean, sigh to us — O sigh!
• Spirits in grief, lift up your heads, and smile;
• Lift up your heads, sweet Spirits, heavily,
• And make a pale light in your cypress glooms,
• Tinting with silver wan your marble tombs.

56

• Moan hither, all ye syllables of woe,
• From the deep throat of sad Melpomene!
• Through bronzed lyre in tragic order go,
• And touch the strings into a mystery;
• Sound mournfully upon the winds and low;
• For simple Isabel is soon to be
• Among the dead: She withers, like a palm
• Cut by an Indian for its juicy balm.

57

• O leave the palm to wither by itself;
• Let not quick Winter chill its dying hour! —
• It may not be — those Baalites of pelf,
• Her brethren, noted the continual shower
• From her dead eyes; and many a curious elf,
• Among her kindred, wonder’d that such dower
• Of youth and beauty should be thrown aside
• By one mark’d out to be a noble’s bride.

58

• And, furthermore, her brethren wonder’d much
• Why she sat drooping by the basil green,
• And why it flourish’d, as by magic touch;
• Greatly they wonder’d what the thing might mean:
• They could not surely give belief, that such
• A very nothing would have power to wean
• Her from her own fair youth, and pleasures gay,
• And even remembrance of her love’s delay.

59

• Therefore they watch’d a time when they might sift
• This hidden whim; and long they watch’d in vain;
• For seldom did she go to chapel-shrift,
• And seldom felt she any hunger-pain;
• And when she left, she hurried back, as swift
• As bird on wing to breast its eggs again;
• And, patient as a hen-bird, sat her there
• Beside her basil, weeping through her hair.

60

• Yet they contriv’d to steal the basil-pot,
• And to examine it in secret place:
• The thing was vile with green and livid spot,
• And yet they knew it was Lorenzo’s face:
• The guerdon of their murder they had got,
• And so left Florence in a moment’s space,
• Never to turn again. — Away they went,
• With blood upon their heads, to banishment.

61

• O Melancholy, turn thine eyes away!
• O Music, Music, breathe despondingly!
• O Echo, Echo, on some other day,
• From isles Lethean, sigh to us — o sigh!
• Spirits of grief, sing not you “ Well-a-way!”
• For Isabel, sweet Isabel, will die;
• Will die a death too lone and incomplete,
• Now they have ta’en away her basil sweet.

62

• Piteous she look’d on dead and senseless things,
• Asking for her lost basil amorously;
• And with melodious chuckle in the strings
• Of her lorn voice, she oftentimes would cry
• After the pilgrim in his wanderings,
• To ask him where her basil was; and why
• ’Twas hid from her: “ For cruel ’tis, ” said she,
• “To steal my basil-pot away from me.”

63

• And so she pined, and so she died forlorn,
• Imploring for her basil to the last.
• No heart was there in Florence but did mourn
• In pity of her love, so overcast.
• And a sad ditty of this story born
• From mouth to mouth through all the country pass’d:
• Still is the burthen sung — “ O cruelty,
• “To steal my basil-pot away from me!”

• All gentle folks who owe a grudge
• To any living thing,
• Open your ears and stay your trudge
• Whilst I in dudgeon sing.

• The gadfly he hath stung me sore —
• O may he ne’er sting you!
• But we have many a horrid bore
• He may sting black and blue.

• Has any here an old grey mare
• With three legs all her store?
• O put it to her buttocks bare
• And straight she’ll run on four.

• Has any here a lawyer suit
• Of 1743?
• Take lawyer’s nose and put it to’t
• And you the end will see.

• Is there a man in Parliament
• Dumbfounder’d in his speech?
• O let his neighbour make a rent
• And put one in his breech.

• O Lowther, how much better thou
• Hadst figur’d t’ other day,
• When to the folks thou mad’st a bow
• And hadst no more to say,

• If lucky gadfly had but ta’en
• His seat upon thine a — e
• And put thee to a little pain
• To save thee from a worse.

• Better than Southey it had been,
• Better than Mr. D — ,
• Better than Wordsworth too, I ween,
• Better than Mr. V — .

• Forgive me pray, good people all,
• For deviating so;
• In spirit sure I had a call —
• And now I on will go.

• Has any here a daughter fair
• Too fond of reading novels,
• Too apt to fall in love with care
• And charming Mister Lovels?

• O put a gadfly to that thing
• She keeps so white and pert —
• I mean the finger for the ring —
• And it will breed a wert.

• Has any here a pious spouse
• Who seven times a day
• Scolds as King David pray’d, to chouse
• And have her holy way?

• O let a gadfly’s little sting
• Persuade her sacred tongue
• That noises are a common thing
• But that her bell has rung.

• And as this is the summum bo-
• Num of all conquering,
• I leave withouten wordes mo
• The gadfly’s little sting.

[from the title page:]

“THE STRETCHED METRE OF AN ANTIQUE SONG”

[from the dedication page:]

INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS CHATTERTON.

PREFACE.

[on pages vii-ix of the original text]

KNOWING within myself the manner in which this Poem has been produced, it is not without a feeling of regret that I make it public.

What manner I mean, will be quite clear to the reader, who must soon perceive great inexperience, immaturity, and every error denoting a feverish attempt, rather than a deed accomplished. The two first books, and indeed the two last, I feel sensible are not of such completion as to warrant their passing the press; nor should they if I thought a year’s castigation would do them any good;—it will not: the foundations are too sandy. It is just that this youngster should die away: a sad thought for me, if I had not some hope that while it is dwindling I may be plotting, and fitting myself for verses fit to live.

This may be speaking too presumptuously, and may deserve a punishment: but no feeling man will be forward to inflict it: he will leave me alone, with the conviction that there is not fiercer hell than the failure in a great object. This is not written with the least atom of purpose to forestall criticisms of course, but from the desire I have to conciliate men who are competent to look, and who do look with a zealous eye, to the honour of English literature.

The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted: thence proceeds mawkishness, and all the thousand bitters which those men I speak of must necessarily taste in going over the following pages.

I hope I have not in too late a day touched the beautiful mythology of Greece and dulled its brightness: for I wish to try once more, before I bid it farewel [sic].

Teignmouth,
April 10, 1818.

ENDYMION

BOOK 1.

• A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
• Its loveliness increases; it will never
• Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
• A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
• Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
• Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
• A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
• Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
• Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
• Of all the unhealthy and o’er-darkened ways
• Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
• Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
• From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
• Trees old, and young sprouting a shady boon
• For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
• With the green world they live in; and clear rills
• That for themselves a cooling covert make
• ’Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
• Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
• And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
• We have imagined for the mighty dead;
• All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
• An endless fountain of immortal drink,
• Pouring unto us from the heaven’s brink.

• Nor do we merely feel these essences
• For one short hour; no, even as the trees
• That whisper round a temple become soon
• Dear as the temple’s self, so does the moon,
• The passion poesy, glories infinite,
• Haunt us till they become a cheering light
• Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast,
• That, whether there be shine, or gloom o’ercast,
• They alway must be with us, or we die.

• Therefore, ’tis with full happiness that I
• Will trace the story of Endymion.
• The very music of the name has gone
• Into my being, and each pleasant scene
• Is growing fresh before me as the green
• Of our own vallies: so I will begin
• Now while I cannot hear the city’s din;
• Now while the early budders are just new,
• And run in mazes of the youngest hue
• About old forests; while the willow trails
• Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
• Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
• Grows lush in juicy stalks, I’ll smoothly steer
• My little boat, for many quiet hours,
• With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
• Many and many a verse I hope to write,
• Before the daisies, vermeil rimm’d and white,
• Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
• Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
• I must be near the middle of my story.
• O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
• See it half finished: but let autumn bold,
• With universal tinge of sober gold,
• Be all about me when I make an end.
• And now at once, adventuresome, I send
• My herald thought into a wilderness:
• There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
• My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
• Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.

• Upon the sides of Latmos was outspread
• A mighty forest; for the moist earth fed
• So plenteously all weed-hidden roots
• Into o’er-hanging boughs, and precious fruits.
• And it had gloomy shades, sequestered deep,
• Where no man went; and if from shepherd’s keep
• A lamb strayed far a-down those inmost glens,
• Never again saw he the happy pens
• Whither his brethren, bleating with content,
• Over the hills at every nightfall went.
• Among the shepherds, ’twas believed ever,
• That not one fleecy lamb which thus did sever
• From the white flock, but pass’d unworried
• By angry wolf, or pard with prying head,
• Until it came to some unfooted plains
• Where fed the herds of Pan: ay great his gains
• Who thus one lamb did lose. Paths there were many,
• Winding through palmy fern, and rushes fenny,
• And ivy banks; all leading pleasantly
• To a wide lawn, whence one could only see
• Stems thronging all around between the swell
• Of turf and slanting branches: who could tell
• The freshness of the space of heaven above,
• Edg’d round with dark tree tops? through which a dove
• Would often beat its wings, and often too
• A little cloud would move across the blue.

• Full in the middle of this pleasantness
• There stood a marble altar, with a tress
• Of flowers budded newly; and the dew
• Had taken fairy phantasies to strew
• Daisies upon the sacred sward last eve,
• And so the dawned light in pomp receive.
• For ’twas the morn: Apollo’s upward fire
• Made every eastern cloud a silvery pyre
• Of brightness so unsullied, that therein
• A melancholy spirit well might win
• Oblivion, and melt out his essence fine
• Into the winds: rain-scented eglantine
• Gave temperate sweets to that well-wooing sun;
• The lark was lost in him; cold springs had run
• To warm their chilliest bubbles in the grass;
• Man’s voice was on the mountains; and the mass
• Of nature’s lives and wonders puls’d tenfold,
• To feel this sun-rise and its glories old.

• Now while the silent workings of the dawn
• Were busiest, into that self-same 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’er-flowing 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,
• Up-followed 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 owlet’s 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 our fearful ewes; and we have had
• Great bounty from Endymion our lord.
• The earth is glad: the merry lark has pour’d
• His early song against yon breezy sky,
• That spreads so clear o’er our solemnity.”

• Thus ending, on the shrine he heap’d a spire
• Of teeming sweets, enkindling sacred fire;
• Anon he stain’d the thick and spongy sod
• With wine, in honour of the shepherd-god.
• Now while the earth was drinking it, and while
• Bay leaves were crackling in the fragrant pile,
• And gummy frankincense was sparkling bright
• ’Neath smothering parsley, and a hazy light
• Spread greyly eastward, thus a chorus sang:

• “O thou, whose mighty palace roof doth hang
• From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth
• Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death
• Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness;
• Who lov’st to see the hamadryads dress
• Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels darken;
• And through whole solemn hours dost sit, and hearken
• The dreary melody of bedded reeds —
• In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds
• The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth;
• Bethinking thee, how melancholy loth
• Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx — do thou now,
• By thy love’s milky brow!
• By all the trembling mazes that she ran,
• Hear us, great Pan!