Even to the trees. He rose: he grasp’d his stole,
With convulsed clenches waving it abroad,
And in a voice of solemn joy, that awed
Echo into oblivion, he said:—
In peace upon my watery pillow: now
Sleep will come smoothly to my weary brow.
O Jove! I shall be young again, be young!
O shell-borne Neptune, I am pierced and stung
With new-born life! What shall I do? Where go,
When I have cast this serpent-skin of woe?—
I’ll swim to the syrens, and one moment listen
Their melodies, and see their long hair glisten;
Anon upon that giant’s arm I’ll be,
That writhes about the roots of Sicily;
To northern seas I’ll in a twinkling sail,
And mount upon the snortings of a whale
To some black cloud; thence down I’ll madly sweep
On forked lightning to the deepest deep,
Where through some sucking pool I will be hurl’d
With rapture to the other side of the world!
O, I am full of gladness! Sisters three,
I bow full-hearted to your old decree!
Yes, every god be thank’d, and power benign,
For I no more shall wither, droop, and pine.
Thou art the man!” Endymion started back
Dismay’d; and like a wretch from whom the rack
Tortures hot breath, and speech of agony,
Mutter’d: “What lonely death am I to die
In this cold region? Will he let me freeze,
And float my brittle limbs o’er polar seas?
Or will he touch me with his searing hand,
And leave a black memorial on the sand?
Or tear me piecemeal with a bony saw,
And keep me as a chosen food to draw
His magian fish through hated fire and flame?
O misery of hell! resistless, tame,
Am I to be burn’d up? No, I will shout,
Until the gods through heaven’s blue look out!—
O Tartarus! but some few days agone
Her soft arms were entwining me, and on
Her voice I hung like fruit among green leaves:
Her lips were all my own, and—ah, ripe sheaves
Of happiness! ye on the stubble droop,
But never may be garner’d. I must stoop
My head, and kiss death’s foot. Love! love, farewell!
Is there no hope from thee? This horrid spell
Would melt at thy sweet breath.—By Dian’s hind
Feeding from her white fingers, on the wind
I see thy streaming hair! and now, by Pan,
I care not for this old mysterious man!”
He spake, and walking to that aged form,
Look’d high defiance. Lo! his heart ’gan warm
With pity, for the grey-hair’d creature wept.
Had he then wrong’d a heart where sorrow kept?
Had he though blindly contumelious, brought
Rheum to kind eyes, a sting to human thought,
Convulsion to a mouth of many years?
He had in truth; and he was ripe for tears.
The penitent shower fell, as down he knelt
Before that care-worn sage, who trembling felt
About his large dark locks, and faltering spake:
I know thine inmost bosom, and I feel
A very brother’s yearning for thee steal
Into mine own: for why? thou openest
The prison-gates that have so long oppress’d
My weary watching. Though thou know’st it not,
Thou art commission’d to this fated spot
For great enfranchisement. O weep no more!
I am a friend to love, to loves of yore:
Ay, hadst thou never loved an unknown power,
I had been grieving at this joyous hour.
But even now, most miserable old,
I saw thee, and my blood no longer cold
Gave mighty pulses: in this tottering case
Grew a new heart, which at this moment plays
As dancingly as thine. Be not afraid,
For thou shalt hear this secret all display’d,
Now as we speed towards our joyous task.”
Went forward with the Carian side by side:
Resuming quickly thus; while ocean’s tide
Hung swollen at their backs, and jewell’d sands
Took silently their foot-prints.
Now past the midway from mortality,
And so I can prepare without a sigh
To tell thee briefly all my joy and pain.
I was a fisher once, upon this main,
And my boat danced in every creek and bay;
Rough billows were my home by night and day,—
The sea-gulls not more constant; for I had
No housing from the storm and tempests mad,
But hollow rocks,—and they were palaces
Of silent happiness, of slumberous ease:
Long years of misery have told me so.
Ay, thus it was one thousand years ago.
One thousand years!—Is it then possible
To look so plainly through them? to dispel
A thousand years with backward glance sublime?
To breathe away as ’twere all scummy slime
From off a crystal pool, to see its deep,
And one’s own image from the bottom peep?
Yes: now I am no longer wretched thrall,
My long captivity and moanings all
Are but a slime, a thin-prevading scum,
The which I breathe away, and thronging come
Like things of yesterday my youthful pleasures.
I was a lonely youth on desert shores.
My sports were lonely, ’mid continuous roars,
And craggy isles, and seamews’ plaintive cry
Plaining discrepant between sea and sky.
Dolphins were still my playmates; shapes unseen
Would let me feel their scales of gold and
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