on his head the beechen wreath.
more shepherds, and the fair-wrought car which
His youth was fully blown,
Showing 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 seemed,
To common lookers-on, like one who dreained
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, and owlets' cry,
Of logs piled solemnly. Ah, well-a-day,
Why should our young Endymion pine away?
The circle of worshippers range themselves round the altar; every look becomes reverent, every voice silent.
Endymion, too, without a forest-peer,
Stood, wan and pale, and with an awèd face,
Among his brothers of the mountain chase.
The venerable priest reminds them of the joys and mercies the gods have showered on them, the sacred fire rises, the libation is poured forth, the chorus in Pan's worship is sung.
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 lovest 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!
O thou, for whose soul-soothing quiet, turtles
Passion their voices cooingly 'mong myrtles,
What time thou wanderest at eventide
Through sunny meadows, that outskirt the side
Of thine enmossèd realms: O thou, to whom
Broad-leaved fig-trees even now foredoom
Their ripened fruitage; yellow-girted bees
Their golden honeycombs; our village leas
Their fairest blossomed beans, and poppied corn ;
The chuckling linnet its five young unborn,
To sing for thee; low creeping strawberries
Their summer coolness; pent-up butterflies
Their freckled wings; yea, the fresh-budding year
All its completions-be quickly near,
By every wind that nods the mountain-pine,
O forester divine!
Thou to whom every fawn and satyr flies
For willing service; whether to surprise
The squatted hare while in half-sleeping fit,
Or upward ragged precipices flit
To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw;
Or by mysterious enticement draw
Bewildered shepherds to their path again;
Or to tread breathless round the frothy main,
And gather up all fancifullest shells
For thee to tumble into Naïads' cells,
And, being hidden, laugh at their outpeeping :
Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping,
The while they pelt each other on the crown
With silvery oak-apples and fir-cones brown-
By all the echoes that about thee ring,
Hear us, O satyr king!
O hearkener to the loud-clapping shears,
While ever and anon to his shorn peers
A ram goes bleating: Winder of the horn,
When snouted wild-boars routing tender corn
Anger our huntsmen: Breather round our farms,
To keep off mildews, and all weather harms :
Strange ministrant of undescribed sounds,
That come a-swooning over hollow grounds,
And wither drearily on barren moors :
Dread opener of the mysterious doors
Leading to universal knowledge-see,
Great son of Dryope,
The many that are come to pay their vows
With leaves about their brows!
Be still the unimaginable lodge
For solitary thinkings; such as dodge
Conception to the very bourne of heaven,
Then leave the naked brain; be still the leaven
That spreading on this dull and clodded earth,
Gives it a touch ethereal—a new birth.
Be still a symbol of immensity,
A firmament reflected in a sea;
An element filling the space between ;
An unknown-but no more; we humbly screen
With uplift hands our foreheads, lowly bending,
And giving out a show most heaven-rending,
Conjure thee to receive our humble pæan,
Upon thy Mount Lycean!
The simple worship over, the nymphs dance, the shepherds pitch their quoits or rest in the grass, and Endymion lingers among the shepherds 'gone in eld' and with the aged priest.
There they discoursed upon the fragile bar
That keeps us from our homes ethereal;
And what our duties there.
Their hopes and fears stray into Elysium, and they tell them one to another.
One felt heart-certain that he could not miss
His quick-gone love, among fair blossomi'd boughs,
Where every zephyr-sigh pouts, and endows
Her lips with music for the welcoming.
Another wished, 'mid that eternal spring,
To meet, his rosy child, with feathery sails
Sweeping, eye-earnestly, through almond vales :
Who, suddenly, should stoop through the smooth wind,
And with the balmiest leaves his temples bind :
And, ever after, through those regions be
His messenger, his little Mercury.
Some were athirst in soul to see again
Their fellow-huntsmen o'er the wide champaign
In times long past; to sit with them, and talk
Of all the chances in their earthly walk.
But Endymion dreams among them. His hopes are wider than any of theirs, but he cannot express them in their words, and he swoons into the trance which has so often held him of late. Then comes Peona, his sister, and guides him,
like some midnight spirit nurse
Of happy changes in emphatic dreams,
to the island where his sleep may have its way, guarded by her-and he wakes refreshed and strengthened, ready to raise his voice once more upon the mountain heights, to cut his bow from the 'fair-grown yew-tree,' to
linger in a sloping mead
To hear the speckled thrushes;
to taste again the simple joys of life that had sufficed him until the enchantment had fallen upon him, which was his hope and yet his doom.
He implores for music. Peona's lay is sad
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