Page:The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats, 1899.djvu/182

146 Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole self!

Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well

As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades

Past the near meadows, over the still stream,

Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep

In the next valley-glades:

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Fled is that music:—do I wake or sleep?

a time, before the faery broods

Drove Nymph and Satyr from the prosperous woods,

Before King Oberon's bright diadem,

Sceptre, and mantle, clasp'd with dewy gem,

Frighted away the Dryads and the Fauns

From rushes green, and brakes, and cowslipp'd lawns,

The ever-smitten Hermes empty left

His golden throne, bent warm on amorous theft;

From high Olympus had he stolen light,

On this side of Jove's clouds, to escape the sight

Of his great summoner, and made retreat

Into a forest on the shores of Crete.

For somewhere in that sacred island dwelt

A nymph, to whom all hoofed Satyrs knelt;

At whose white feet the languid Tritons poured

Pearls, while on land they wither'd and adored.

Fast by the springs where she to bathe was wont,

And in those meads where sometimes she might haunt,

Were strewn rich gifts, unknown to any Muse,

Though Fancy's casket were unlock'd to choose.

Ah, what a world of love was at her feet!

So Hermes thought, and a celestial heat

Burnt from his winged heels to either ear,

That from a whiteness, as the lily clear,

Blush'd into roses 'mid his golden hair,

Fallen in jealous curls about his shoulders bare.

From vale to vale, from wood to wood, he flew,

Breathing upon the flowers his passion new,

And wound with many a river to its head,

To find where this sweet nymph prepared her secret bed:

In vain; the sweet nymph might nowhere be found,

And so he rested, on the lonely ground,

Pensive, and full of painful jealousies

Of the Wood-Gods, and even the very trees.

There as he stood, he heard a mournful voice,