Page:Keats - Poetical Works, DeWolfe, 1884.djvu/38



These things, with all their comfortings, are given To my down-sunken hours, and with thee, Sweet sister, help to stem the ebbing sea Of weary life."
 * Thus ended he, and both

Sat silent: for the maid was very loth To answer; feeling well that breathed words Would all be lost, unheard, and vain as swords Against the enchased crocodile, or leaps Of grasshoppers against the sun. She weeps, And wonders; struggles to devise some blame To put on such a look as would say, Shame On this poor weakness! but, for all her strife, She could as soon have crush'd away the life From a sick dove. At length, to break the pause, She said with trembling chance: "Is this the cause? This all? Yet it is strange and sad, alas! That one who through this middle earth should pass Most like a sojourning demi-god, and leave His name upon the harp-string, should achieve 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, If any said 'twas love: and yet 'twas love; What could it be but love? How a ring-dove 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!