I lisp'd thy blooming titles inwardly;
For at the first, first dawn and thought of thee, With uplift hands I bless'd the stars of heaven. Art thou not cruel? ever have I striven To think thee kind, but ah, it will not do! When yet a child, I heard that kisses drew Favour from thee, and so I kisses gave To the void air, bidding them find out love: But when I came to feel how far above All fancy, pride, and fickle maidenhood, All earthly pleasure, all imagined good, Was the warm tremble of a devout kiss, Even then that moment, at the thought of this, Fainting I fell into a bed of flowers,
And languish'd there three days. Ye milder powers,
Am I not cruelly wrong'd? Believe, believe Me, dear Endymion, were I to weave With my own fancies garlands of sweet life, Thou should'st be one of all. Ah, bitter strife! I may not be thy love: I am forbidden - Indeed I am thwarted, affrighted, chidden, By things I trembled at, and gorgon wrath. Twice hast thou ask'd whither I went: henceforth Ask me no more! I may not utter it,
Nor may I be thy love. We might commit Ourselves at once to vengeance we might die; We might embrace and die: voluptuous thought! Enlarge not to my hunger, or I'm caught
In trammels of perverse deliciousness.
No, no, that shall not be: thee will I bless, And bid a long adieu."
No word return'd: both lovelorn, silent, wan, Into the valleys green together went. Far wandering, they were perforce content To sit beneath a fair lone beechen tree;
Nor at each other gazed, but heavily Pored on its hazel cirque of shedded leaves.
Endymion! unhappy! it nigh grieves Me to behold thee thus in last extreme: Enskied ere this, but truly that I deem Truth the best music in a first-born song. Thy lute-voice'd brother will I sing ere long, And thou shalt aid hast thou not aided me? Yes, moonlight Emperor! felicity
Has been thy meed for many thousand years; Yet often have I, on the brink of tears, Mourn'd as if yet thou wert a forester; Forgetting the old tale.
His eyes from the dead leaves, or one small pulse Of joy he might have felt. The spirit culls Unfaded amaranth, when wild it strays Through the old garden-ground of boyish days. A little onward ran the very stream
By which he took his first soft poppy dream; And on the very bark 'gainst which he leant A crescent he had carved, and round it spent His skill in little stars. The teeming tree Had swoll'n and green'd the pious charactery, But not ta'en out. Why, there was not a slope Up which he had not fear'd the antelope; And not a tree, beneath whose rooty shade He had not with his tamed leopards play'd; Nor could an arrow light, or javelin, Fly in the air where his had never been And yet he knew it not.
O treachery! pleasing her eye He sees her not.
Why does his lady smile, With all his sorrowing? But who so stares on him?
Peona of the woods!- Can she endure? Impossible - how dearly they embrace ! His lady smiles; delight is in her face; It is no treachery.
Endymion, weep not so! Why should'st thou pine When all great Latmos so exalt will be? Thank the great gods, and look not bitterly; And speak not one pale word, and sigh no more. Sure I will not believe thou hast such store Of grief, to last thee to my kiss again. Thou surely canst not bear a mind in pain, Come hand in hand with one so beautiful. Be happy both of you! for I will pull The flowers of autumn for your coronals. Pan's holy priest for young Endymion calls; And when he is restored, thou, fairest dame, Shalt be our queen. Now, is it not a shame To see ye thus, not very, very sad? Perhaps ye are too happy to be glad : O feel as if it were a common day; Free-voiced as one who never was away.
No tongue shall ask, whence come ye? but ye shall
Be gods of your own rest imperial.
Not even I, for one whole month will pry Into the hours that have pass'd us by, Since in my arbour I did sing to thee. O Hermes! on this very night will be A hymning up to Cynthia, queen of light; For the soothsayers old saw yesternight Good visions in the air, whence will befall, As say these sages, health perpetual
To shepherds and their flocks; and furthermore, In Dian's face they read the gentle lore: Therefore for her these vesper-carols are. Our friends will all be there from nigh and far.
Many upon thy death have ditties made; And many, even now, their foreheads shade With cypress, on a day of sacrifice.
New singing for our maids shalt thou devise, And pluck the sorrow from our huntsmen's brows, Tell me, my lady-queen, how to espouse This wayward brother to his rightful joys! His eyes are on thee bent, as thou didst poise His fate most goddess-like. Help me, I pray, To lure Endymion, dear brother, say
What ails thee? He could bear no more, and so Bent his soul fiercely like a spiritual bow, And twang'd it inwardly, and calmly said : "I would have thee my only friend, sweet maid! My only visitor! not ignorant though,
That those deceptions which for pleasure go 'Mong men, are pleasures real as real may be: But there are higher ones I may not see, If impiously an earthly realm I take. Since I saw thee, I have been wide awake Night after night, and day by day, until Of the empyrean I have drunk my fill. Let it content thee, Sister, seeing me More happy than betides mortality. A hermit young, I'll live in mossy cave, Where thou alone shalt come to me, and lave
Thy spirit in the wonders I shall tell.
Through me the shepherd realm shall prosper well;
For to thy tongue will I all health confide.
And for my sake, let this young maid abide
With thee as a dear sister.
Peona, mayst return to me. I own
This may sound strangely: but when, dearest girl, Thou seest it for my happiness, no pearl
Will trespass down those cheeks. Companion fair! Wilt be content to dwell with her, to share This sister's love with me?" Like one resign'd And bent by circumstances, and thereby blind
In self-commitment, thus, that meek unknown : Ay, but a buzzing by my ears has flown, Of jubilee to Dian: - truth I heard! Well then, I see there is no little bird, Tender soever, but is Jove's own care. Long have I sought for rest, and unaware, Behold I find it! so exalted too!
So after my own heart! I knew, I knew There was a place untenanted in it ; In that same void white Chastity shall sit, And monitor me nightly to lone slumber. With sanest lips I vow me to the number Of Dian's sisterhood; and kind lady, With thy good help, this very night shall see My future days to her fane consecrate.”
As feels a dreamer what doth most create His own particular fright, so these three felt: Or like one who, in after ages, knelt To Lucifer or Baal, when he'd pine After a little sleep: or when in mine
Far under-ground, a sleeper meets his friends Who know him not. Each diligently bends Towards common thoughts and things for very fear;
Striving their ghastly malady to cheer, By thinking it a thing of yes and no,
That housewives talk of. But the spirit-blow Was struck, and all were dreamers.
Endymion said: "Are not our fates all cast? Why stand we here? Adieu, ye tender pair! Adieu!" Whereat those maidens, with wild stare, Walk'd dizzily away. Pained and hot
His eyes went after them, until they got
Near to a cypress grove, whose deadly maw, In one swift moment, would what then he saw Engulf for ever. Stay," he cried, "ah, stay! Turn damsels! hist! one word I have to say:
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