66 6

MAGNIFICENT HYMN TO PAN.

What time thou wanderest at eventide
Through sunny meadows, that outskirt the side
Of thine enmossed realms: O thou, to whom
Broad leaved fig trees even now foredoom
Their ripen'd 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

Bewilder'd shepherds to their path again;
Or to tread breathless round the frothy main,
And gather up all fancifullest shells
For thee to tumble into Naiads' cells,
And, being hidden, laugh at their out-peeping!
Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping,
The while they pelt each other on the crown
With silv'ry 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!'"-p. 114–117.

379

The enamoured youth sinks into insensibility in the midst of the solemnity, and is borne apart and revived by the care of his sister; and, opening his heavy eyes in her arms, says―

"I feel this thine endearing love

All through my bosom! Thou art as a dove
Trembling its closed eyes and sleeked wings
About me; and the pearliest dew not brings

380 KEATS

ENDYMION

HIS VISIONS OF LOVE.

Such morning incense from the fields of May,
As do those brighter drops that twinkling stray
From those kind eyes. Then think not thou
That, any longer, I will pass my days

Alone and sad. No! I will once more raise
My voice upon the mountain heights; once more
Make my horn parley from their foreheads hoar!
Again my trooping hounds their tongues shall loll
Around the breathed boar: again I'll poll
The fair-grown yew tree, for a chosen bow:
And, when the pleasant sun is getting low,
Again I'll linger in a sloping mead

To hear the speckled thrushes, and see feed
Our idle sheep. So be thou cheered, sweet,
And, if thy lute is here, softly intreat
My soul to keep in its resolved course.'

"Hereat Peona, in their silver source

"Twas a lay

Shut her pure sorrow drops, with glad exclaim;
And took a lute, from which there pulsing came
A lively prelude, fashioning the way
In which her voice should wander.
More subtle cadenced, more forest wild
Than Dryope's lone lulling of her child;
And nothing since has floated in the air
So mournful strange."- p. 25-27.

He then tells her all the story of his love and madness; and gives this airy sketch of the first vision he had, or fancied he had, of his descending goddess. After some rapturous intimations of the glories of her goldburnished hair, he says

Indeed, locks bright enough to make me mad!
And they were simply gordian'd up and braided,
Leaving, in naked comeliness, unshaded,

Her pearl round ears, white neck, and orbed brow;
The which were blended in, I knew not how,
With such a paradise of lips and eyes,

Blush-tinted cheeks, half smiles, and faintest sighs,
That when I think thereon, my spirit clings

And melts into the vision!"

"And then her hovering feet!

More bluely veined, more soft, more whitely sweet
Than those of sea-born Venus, when she rose
From out her cradle shell! The wind outblows
Her scarf into a fluttering pavilion!-

'Tis blue; and overspangled with a million

VENUS AND ADONIS.

Of little eyes; as though thou wert to shed
Over the darkest, lushest blue bell bed,
Handfuls of daisies."

381

Overpowered by this "celestial colloquy sublime," he sinks at last into slumber-and on wakening finds the scene disenchanted; and the dull shades of evening deepening over his solitude:

"Then up I started - Ah! my sighs, my tears!
My clenched hands! For lo! the poppies hung
Dew dabbled on their stalks; the ouzel sung
A heavy ditty; and the sullen day
Had chidden herald Hesperus away,
With leaden looks. The solitary breeze
Bluster'd and slept; and its wild self did teaze
With wayward melancholy. And I thought,
Mark me, Peona! that sometimes it brought,
Faint Fare-thee-wells -

and sigh-shrilled Adieus!"

Soon after this he is led away by butterflies to the haunts of Naiads; and by them sent down into enchanted caverns, where he sees Venus and Adonis, and great flights of Cupids; and wanders over diamond terraces among beautiful fountains and temples and statues, and all sorts of fine and strange things. All this is very fantastical: But there are splendid pieces of description, and a sort of wild richness in the whole. We cull a few little morsels. This is the picture of the sleeping Adonis:— In midst of all, there lay a sleeping youth Of fondest beauty. Sideway his face repos'd On one white arm, and tenderly unclos'd, By tenderest pressure, a faint damask mouth To slumbery pout; just as the morning south Disparts a dew-lipp'd rose. Above his head, Four lily stalks did their white honours wed To make a coronal; and round him grew All tendrils green, of every bloom and hue, Together intertwin'd and trammel'd fresh: The vine of glossy sprout; the ivy mesh, Shading its Ethiop berries; and woodbine, Of velvet leaves and bugle-blooms divine. Hard by, Stood serene Cupids watching silently. One, kneeling to a lyre, touch'd the strings, Muffling to death the pathos with his wings! And, ever and anon, uprose to look

At the youth's slumber; while another took

382 KEATS

CYBELE

ENCHANTED WATERWORKS.

A willow-bough, distilling odorous dew,
And shook it on his hair; another flew

In through the woven roof, and fluttering-wise

Rain'd violets upon his sleeping eyes."-p. 72, 73.

Here is another, and more classical sketch, of Cybelewith a picture of lions that might excite the envy of Rubens, or Edwin Landseer!

"Forth from a rugged arch, in the dusk below,
Came mother Cybele! alone alone! —
In sombre chariot; dark foldings thrown
About her majesty, and front death-pale

With turrets crown'd. Four maned lions hale
The sluggish wheels; solemn their toothed maws,
Their surly eyes brow-hidden, heavy paws

Uplifted drowsily, and nervy tails

Cowering their tawny brushes.

Silent sails

This shadowy queen athwart, and faints away
In another gloomy arch!"- p. 83.

The following picture of the fairy waterworks, which he unconsciously sets playing in these enchanted caverns, is, it must be confessed, "high fantastical;" but we venture to extract it, for the sake of the singular brilliancy and force of the execution:

"So on he hies

Through caves and palaces of mottled ore,
Gold dome, and crystal wall, and turquoise floor,
Black polish'd porticoes of awful shade,
Till, at the last, a diamond balustrade
Leads sparkling just above the silvery heads
Of a thousand fountains; so that he could dash
The waters with his spear! But at that splash,
Done heedlessly, those spouting columns rose
Sudden a poplar's height, and 'gan to enclose
His diamond path with fretwork, streaming round,
Alive, and dazzling cool, and with a sound
Haply, like dolphin tumults, when sweet shells
Welcome the car of Thetis! Long he dwells
On this delight; for every minute's space
The streams with changing magic interlace;
Sometimes like delicatest lattices,

Cover'd with crystal vines: then weeping trees
Moving about, as in a gentle wind;
Which, in a wink, to wat'ry gauze refin'd
Pour into shapes of curtain'd canopies,

Spangled, and rich with liquid broideries

SUBMARINE ADVENTURES,

Of Flowers, Peacocks, Swans, and Naiads fair!
Swifter than lightning went these wonders rare;
And then the water into stubborn streams
Collecting, mimick'd the wrought oaken beams,
Pillars, and freize, and high fantastic roof
Of those dark places, in times far aloof
Cathedrals nam'd!"

383

There are strange melodies too around him; and their effect on the fancy is thus poetically described:

"Oh! when the airy stress

Of Music's kiss impregnates the free winds,
And with a sympathetic touch unbinds
Eolian magic from their lucid wombs!
Then old songs waken from forgotten tombs!
Old ditties sigh above their father's grave!
Ghosts of melodious prophesyings rave
Round every spot where trod Apollo's feet!
Bronze clarions awake, and faintly bruit,
Where long ago a Giant battle was!
And from the turf a lullaby doth pass,

In ev'ry place where infant Orpheus slept!"

In the midst of all these enchantments he has, we do not very well know how, another ravishing interview with his unknown goddess; and when she again melts away from him, he finds himself in a vast grotto, where he overhears the courtship of Alpheus and Arethusa; and as they elope together, discovers that the grotto has disappeared, and that he is at the bottom of the sea, under the transparent arches of its naked waters! The following is abundantly extravagant; but comes of no ignoble lineage -nor shames its high descent:

"Far had he roam'd,

With nothing save the hollow vast, that foam'd
Above, around, and at his feet; save things
More dead than Morpheus' imaginings!
Old rusted anchors, helmets, breast-plates large
Of gone sea-warriors; brazen beaks and targe;
Rudders that for a thousand years had lost
The sway of human hand; gold vase emboss'd
With long-forgotten story, and wherein
No reveller had ever dipp'd a chin

But those of Saturn's vintage; mould'ring scrolls,
Writ in the tongue of heaven, by those souls
Who first were on the earth; and sculptures rude
In pond'rous stone, developing the mood