Page:Keats - Poetical Works, DeWolfe, 1884.djvu/79



No, he had felt too much for such harsh jars: The lyre of his soul Æolian tuned Forgot all violence, and but communed With melancholy thought: O he had swoon'd Drunken from pleasure's nipple! and his love Henceforth was dove-like.—Loth was he to move From the imprinted couch, and when he did, 'Twas with slow, languid paces, and face hid In muffling hands. So temper'd, out he stray'd Half seeing visions that might have dismay'd Alecto's serpents; ravishments more keen Than Hermes' pipe, when anxious he did lean Over eclipsing eyes: and at the last It was a sounding grotto, vaulted, vast, O'erstudded with a thousand, thousand pearls, And crimson-mouthed shells with stubborn curls, Of every shape and size, even to the bulk In which whales harbor close, to brood and sulk Against an endless storm. Moreover too, Fish-semblances, of green and azure hue, Ready to snort their streams. In this cool wonder Endymion sat down, and 'gan to ponder On all his life: his youth, up to the day When 'mid acclaim, and feasts, and garlands gay, He stepp'd upon his shepherd throne: the look Of his white palace in wild forest nook, And all the revels he had lorded there: Each tender maiden whom he once thought fair, With every friend and fellow-woodlander— Pass'd like a dream before him. Then the spur Of the old bards to mighty deeds: his plans To nurse the golden age 'mong shepherd clans: