No higher bard than simple maidenhood, Singing alone, and fearfully,-how the blood
Left his young cheek; and how he used to stray He knew not where: and how he would say, nay,
any said 't was love: and yet 't was love; What could it be but love? How a ringdove Let fall a sprig of yew-tree in his path
And how he died: and then, that love doth scathe The gentle heart, as northern blasts do roses; And then the ballad of his sad life closes With sighs, and an alas!-Endymion ! Be rather in the trumpet's mouth,—anon Among the winds at large-that all may hearken! Although, before the crystal heavens darken, I watch and dote upon the silver lakes Pictured in western cloudiness, that takes
The semblance of gold rocks and bright gold sands, Islands, and creeks, and amber-fretted strands With horses prancing o'er them, palaces And towers of amethyst,―would I so tease My pleasant days, because I could not mount Into those regions? The Morphean fount Of that fine element that visions, dreams, And fitful whims of sleep are made of, streams Into its airy channels with so subtle,
So thin a breathing, not the spider's shuttle, Circled a million times within the space
Of a swallow's nest-door, could delay a trace,
A tinting of its quality: how light
Must dreams themselves be; seeing they're more slight
Then the mere nothing that engenders them! Then wherefore sully the entrusted gem
Of high and noble life with thoughts so sick?
Why pierce high-fronted honor to the quick For nothing but a dream?" Hereat the youth Look'd up a conflicting of shame and ruth Was in his plaited brow: yet his eyelids Widen'd a little, as when Zephyr bids. A little breeze to creep between the fans Of careless butterflies: amid his pains He seem'd to taste a drop of manna-dew, Full palatable; and a color grew Upon his cheek, while thus he lifeful spake.
"Peona! ever have I long'd to slake My thirst for the world's praises: nothing base, No merely slumberous phantasm, could unlace The stubborn canvas for my voyage prepared― Though now 't is tatter'd ; leaving my bark bared And sullenly drifting: yet my higher hope Is of too wide, too rainbow-large a scope, To fret at myriads of earthly wrecks. Wherein lies happiness? In that which becks Our ready minds to fellowship divine,
A fellowship with essence; till we shine, Full alchemized, and free of space. Behold The clear religion of heaven! Fold
A rose leaf round thy finger's taperness,
And soothe thy lips: hist! when the airy stress Of music's kiss impregnates the free winds, And with a sympathetic touch unbinds Æolian magic from their lucid wombs:
Then old songs waken from enclouded tombs ; Old ditties sigh above their father's grave; Ghosts of melodious prophesyings rave Round every spot where trod Apollo's foot;
Bronze clarions awake, and faintly bruit, Where long ago a giant battle was; And, from the turf, a lullaby doth pass
In every place where infant Orpheus slept. Feel we these things!—that moment have we stept Into a sort of oneness, and our state
Is like a floating spirit's. But there are Richer entanglements, enthralments far More self-destroying, leading, by degrees, To the chief intensity; the crown of these Is made of love and friendship, and sits high Upon the forehead of humanity.
All its more ponderous and bulky worth Is friendship, whence there ever issues forth A steady splendor; but at the tip-top, There hangs by unseen film, an orbed drop Of light, and that is love: its influence Thrown in our eyes genders a novel sense, At which we start and fret; till in the end, Melting into its radiance, we blend, Mingle, and so become a part of it,— Nor with aught else can our souls interknit So wingedly when we combine therewith, Life's self is nourish'd by its proper pith, And we are nurtured like a pelican brood. Ay, so delicious is the unsating food, That men, who might have tower'd in the van Of all the congregated world, to fan And winnow from the coming step of time All chaff of custom, wipe away all slime Left by men-slugs and human serpentry, Have been content to let occasion die, Whilst they did sleep in love's elysium.
And, truly, I would rather be struck dumb, Than speak against this ardent listlessness: For I have ever thought that it might bless The world with benefits unknowingly ; As does the nightingale, up-perched high, And cloister'd among cool and bunched leaves- She sings but to her love, nor e'er conceives How tiptoe Night holds back her dark-grey hood. Just so may love, although 't is understood The mere commingling of passionate breath, Produce more than our searching witnesseth : What I know not: but who, of men, can tell That flowers would bloom, or that green fruit would swell To melting pulp, that fish would have bright mail, The earth its dower of river, wood, and vale, The meadows runnels, runnels pebble-stones, The seed its harvest, or the lute its tones, Tones ravishment, or ravishment its sweet, If human souls did never kiss and greet?
"Now, if this earthly love has power to make Men's being mortal, immortal; to shake Ambition from their memories, and brim
Their measure of content; what merest whim, Seems all this poor endeavor after fame, To one, who keeps within his steadfast aim
A love immortal, an immortal too.
Look not so wildered; for these things are true,
And never can be born of atomies
That buzz about our slumbers, like brain-flies, Leaving us fancy-sick. No, no, I'm sure, My restless spirit never could endure To brood so long upon one luxury,
Unless it did, though fearfully, espy
A hope beyond the shadow of a dream. My sayings will the less obscured seem When I have told thee how my waking sight Has made me scruple whether that same night Was pass'd in dreaming. Hearken, sweet Peona! Beyond the matron-temple of Latona,
Which we should see but for these darkening boughs, Lies a deep hollow, from whose ragged brows Bushes and trees do lean all round athwart, And meet so nearly, that with wings outraught, And spreaded tail, a vulture could not glide Past them, but he must brush on every side. Some moulder'd steps lead into this cool cell, Far as the slabbed margin of a well, Whose patient level peeps its crystal eye Right upward, through the bushes, to the sky. Oft have I brought thee flowers, on their stalks set Like vestal primroses, but dark velvet Edges them round, and they have golden pits: 'T was there I got them, from the gaps and slits In a mossy stone, that sometimes was my seat, When all above was faint with mid-day heat. And there in strife no burning thoughts to heed, I'd bubble up the water through a reed; So reaching back to boyhood: make me ships Of moulted feathers, touchwood, alder chips, With leaves stuck in them; and the Neptune be Of their petty ocean. Oftener heavily, When lovelorn hours had left me less a child, I sat contemplating the figures wild
Of o'er-head clouds melting the mirror through. Upon a day, while thus I watch'd, by flew
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