Poetry, John Keats [grave mercy .txt] 📗

“Let us commence,”
Whisper’d the guide, stuttering with joy, “even now.”
He spake, and, trembling like an aspen-bough,
Began to tear his scroll in pieces small,
Uttering the while some mumblings funeral.
He tore it into pieces small as snow
That drifts unfeather’d when bleak northerns blow;
And having done it, took his dark blue cloak
And bound it round Endymion: then struck
His wand against the empty air times nine.⁠—
“What more there is to do, young man, is thine:
But first a little patience; first undo
This tangled thread, and wind it to a clue.
Ah, gentle! ’tis as weak as spider’s skein;
And shouldst thou break it⁠—What, is it done so clean?
A power overshadows thee! Oh, brave!
The spite of hell is tumbling to its grave.
Here is a shell; ’tis pearly blank to me,
Nor mark’d with any sign or charactery⁠—
Canst thou read aught? O read for pity’s sake!
Olympus! we are safe! Now, Carian, break
This wand against yon lyre on the pedestal.”

’Twas done: and straight with sudden swell and fall
Sweet music breathed her soul away, and sigh’d
A lullaby to silence.⁠—“Youth! now strew
These minced leaves on me, and passing through
Those files of dead, scatter the same around,
And thou wilt see the issue.”⁠—’Mid the sound
Of flutes and viols, ravishing his heart,
Endymion from Glaucus stood apart,
And scatter’d in his face some fragments light.
How lightning-swift the change! a youthful wight
Smiling beneath a coral diadem,
Out-sparkling sudden like an upturn’d gem,
Appear’d, and, stepping to a beauteous corse,
Kneel’d down beside it, and with tenderest force
Press’d its cold hand, and wept,⁠—and Scylla sigh’d!
Endymion, with quick hand, the charm applied⁠—
The nymph arose: he left them to their joy,
And onward went upon his high employ,
Showering those powerful fragments on the dead.
And, as he pass’d, each lifted up its head,
As doth a flower at Apollo’s touch.
Death felt it to his inwards: ’twas too much:
Death fell a-weeping in his charnel-house.
The Latmian persevered along, and thus
All were reanimated. There arose
A noise of harmony, pulses and throes
Of gladness in the air⁠—while many, who
Had died in mutual arms devout and true,
Sprang to each other madly; and the rest
Felt a high certainty of being blest.
They gazed upon Endymion. Enchantment
Grew drunken, and would have its head and bent.
Delicious symphonies, like airy flowers,
Budded, and swell’d, and, full-blown, shed full showers
Of light, soft, unseen leaves of sounds divine.
The two deliverers tasted a pure wine
Of happiness, from fairy press oozed out.
Speechless they eyed each other, and about
The fair assembly wandered to and fro,
Distracted with the richest overflow
Of joy that ever pour’d from heav’n.

—“Away!”
Shouted the new born god; “Follow, and pay
Our piety to Neptunus supreme!”⁠—
Then Scylla, blushing sweetly from her dream,
They led on first, bent to her meek surprise,
Through portal columns of a giant size
Into the vaulted, boundless emerald.
Joyous all follow’d, as the leader call’d,
Down marble steps; pouring as easily
As hour-glass sand⁠—and fast, as you might see
Swallows obeying the south summer’s call,
Or swans upon a gentle waterfall.

Thus went that beautiful multitude, nor far,
Ere from among some rocks of glittering spar,
Just within ken, they saw descending thick
Another multitude. Whereat more quick
Moved either host. On a wide sand they met,
And of those numbers every eye was wet;
For each their old love found. A murmuring rose,
Like what was never heard in all the throes
Of wind and waters: ’tis past human wit
To tell; ’tis dizziness to think of it.

This mighty consummation made, the host
Moved on for many a league; and gain’d and lost
Huge sea-marks; vanward swelling in array,
And from the rear diminishing away,⁠—
Till a faint dawn surprised them. Glaucus cried,
“Behold! behold, the palace of his pride!
God Neptune’s palaces.” With noise increased,
They shoulder’d on towards that brightening east.
At every onward step proud domes arose
In prospect,⁠—diamond gleams and golden glows
Of amber ’gainst their faces levelling.
Joyous, and many as the leaves in spring,
Still onward; still the splendour gradual swell’d.
Rich opal domes were seen, on high upheld
By jasper pillars, letting through their shafts
A blush of coral. Copious wonder-draughts
Each gazer drank; and deeper drank more near:
For what poor mortals fragment up, as mere
As marble was there lavish, to the vast
Of one fair palace, that far, far surpass’d,
Even for common bulk, those olden three,
Memphis, and Babylon, and Nineveh.

As large, as bright, as colour’d as the bow
Of Iris, when unfading it doth show
Beyond a silvery shower, was the arch
Through which this Paphian army took its march,
Into the outer courts of Neptune’s state:
Whence could be seen, direct, a golden gate,
To which the leaders sped; but not half raught
Ere it burst open swift as fairy thought,
And made those dazzled thousands veil their eyes
Like callow eagles at the first sunrise.
Soon with an eagle nativeness their gaze
Ripe from hue-golden swoons took all the blaze,
And then, behold! large Neptune on his throne
Of emerald deep: yet not exalt alone;
At his right hand stood winged Love, and on
His left sat smiling Beauty’s paragon.

Far as the mariner on highest mast
Can see all round upon the calmed vast,
So wide was Neptune’s hall: and as the blue
Doth vault the waters, so the waters drew
Their doming curtains, high, magnificent,
Awed from the throne aloof;⁠—and when storm rent
Disclosed the thunder-gloomings in Jove’s air;
But soothed as now, flash’d sudden everywhere,
Noiseless, sub-marine cloudlets, glittering
Death to a human eye: for there did spring
From natural west, and east, and south, and north,
A light as of four sunsets, blazing forth
A gold-green zenith ’bove the Sea-God’s head.
Of lucid depth the floor, and far outspread
As breezeless lake, on which the slim canoe
Of feather’d Indian darts about, as through
The delicatest air: air verily,
But for the portraiture of clouds and sky:
This palace floor breath-air,⁠—but for the amaze
Of deep-seen wonders motionless,⁠—and blaze
Of the dome pomp, reflected in extremes,
Globing a golden sphere.

They stood in dreams
Till Triton blew his horn. The palace rang;
The Nereids danced; the Sirens faintly sang;
And the great Sea-King bow’d his dripping head.
Then Love took wing, and from his pinions shed
On all the multitude a nectarous dew.
The ooze-born Goddess beckoned and drew
Fair Scylla and her guides to conference;
And when they reach’d the throned eminence
She kiss’d the sea-nymph’s cheek,⁠—who sat her down
A-toying with the doves. Then,⁠—“Mighty crown
And sceptre of this kingdom!” Venus said,
“Thy vows were on a time to Nais paid:
Behold!”⁠—Two copious tear-drops