Poetry, John Keats [grave mercy .txt] 📗

Meantime a glorious revelry began
Before the water-monarch. Nectar ran
In courteous fountains to all cups out-reach’d;
And plunder’d vines, teeming exhaustless, pleach’d
New growth about each shell and pendent lyre;
The which, in disentangling for their fire,
Pull’d down fresh foliage and coverture
For dainty toying. Cupid, empire-sure,
Flutter’d and laugh’d, and oft-times through the throng
Made a delighted way. Then dance, and song,
And garlanding, grew wild; and pleasure reign’d.
In harmless tendril they each other chain’d,
And strove who should be smother’d deepest in
Fresh crush of leaves.

O ’tis a very sin
For one so weak to venture his poor verse
In such a place as this. O do not curse,
High Muses! let him hurry to the ending.

All suddenly were silent. A soft blending
Of dulcet instruments came charmingly;
And then a hymn.

“King of the stormy sea!
Brother of Jove, and co-inheritor
Of elements! Eternally before
Thee the waves awful bow. Fast, stubborn rock,
At thy fear’d trident shrinking, doth unlock
Its deep foundations, hissing into foam.
All mountain-rivers, lost in the wide home
Of thy capacious bosom, ever flow.
Thou frownest, and old Æolus thy foe
Skulks to his cavern, ’mid the gruff complaint
Of all his rebel tempests. Dark clouds faint
When, from thy diadem, a silver gleam
Slants over blue dominion. Thy bright team
Gulfs in the morning light, and scuds along
To bring thee nearer to that golden song
Apollo singeth, while his chariot
Waits at the doors of heaven. Thou art not
For scenes like this: an empire stern hast thou;
And it hath furrow’d that large front: yet now,
As newly come of heaven, dost thou sit
To blend and interknit
Subdued majesty with this glad time.
O shell-borne King sublime!
We lay our hearts before thee evermore⁠—
We sing, and we adore!

“Breathe softly, flutes;
Be tender of your strings, ye soothing lutes;
Nor be the trumpet heard! O vain, O vain;
Not flowers budding in an April rain,
Nor breath of sleeping dove, nor river’s flow,⁠—
No, nor the Æolian twang of Love’s own bow,
Can mingle music fit for the soft ear
Of goddess Cytherea!
Yet deign, white Queen of Beauty, thy fair eyes
On our soul’s sacrifice.

“Bright-winged Child!
Who has another care when thou hast smiled?
Unfortunates on earth, we see at last
All death-shadows, and glooms that overcast
Our spirits, fann’d away by thy light pinions.
O sweetest essence! sweetest of all minions!
God of warm pulses, and dishevell’d hair,
And panting bosoms bare!
Dear unseen light in darkness! eclipser
Of light in light! delicious poisoner!
Thy venom’d goblet will we quaff until
We fill⁠—we fill!
And by thy Mother’s lips⁠—”

Was heard no more
For clamour, when the golden palace door
Open’d again, and from without, in shone
A new magnificence. On oozy throne
Smooth-moving came Oceanus the old,
To take a latest glimpse at his sheepfold,
Before he went into his quiet cave
To muse for ever⁠—Then a lucid wave,
Scoop’d from its trembling sisters of mid-sea,
Afloat, and pillowing up the majesty
Of Doris, and the Ægean seer, her spouse⁠—
Next, on a dolphin, clad in laurel boughs,
Theban Amphion leaning on his lute:
His fingers went across it⁠—All were mute
To gaze on Amphitrite, queen of pearls,
And Thetis pearly too.⁠—

The palace whirls
Around giddy Endymion; seeing he
Was there far strayed from mortality.
He could not bear it⁠—shut his eyes in vain;
Imagination gave a dizzier pain.
“O I shall die! sweet Venus, be my stay!
Where is my lovely mistress? Wellaway!
I die⁠—I hear her voice⁠—I feel my wing”⁠—
At Neptune’s feet he sank. A sudden ring’⁠—
Of Nereids were about him, in kind strife
To usher back his spirit into life:
But still he slept. At last they interwove
Their cradling arms, and purposed to convey
Towards a crystal bower far away.

Lo! while slow carried through the pitying crowd,
To his inward senses these words spake aloud;
Written in starlight on the dark above:
“Dearest Endymion! my entire love!
How have I dwelt in fear of fate; ’tis done⁠—
Immortal bliss for me too hast thou won.
Arise then! for the hen-dove shall not hatch
Her ready eggs, before I’ll kissing snatch
Thee into endless heaven. Awake! awake!”

The youth at once arose: a placid lake
Came quiet to his eyes; and forest green,
Cooler than all the wonders he had seen,
Lull’d with its simple song his fluttering breast.
How happy once again in grassy nest!

Muse of my native land! loftiest Muse!
O first-born on the mountains! by the hues
Of heaven on the spiritual air begot:
Long didst thou sit alone in northern grot,
While yet our England was a wolfish den;
Before our forests heard the talk of men;
Before the first of Druids was a child:⁠—
Long didst thou sit amid our regions wild,
Rapt in a deep prophetic solitude.
There came an eastern voice of solemn mood:⁠—
Yet wast thou patient. Then sang forth the Nine,
Apollo’s garland:⁠—yet didst thou divine
Such home-bred glory, that they cried in vain,
“Come hither, Sister of the Island!” Plain
Spake fair Ausonia; and once more she spake
A higher summons:⁠—still didst thou betake
Thee to thy native hopes. O thou hast won
A full accomplishment! The thing is done,
Which undone, these our latter days had risen
On barren souls. Great Muse, thou know’st what prison
Of flesh and bone, curbs, and confines, and frets
Our spirits’ wings: despondency besets
Our pillows; and the fresh to-morrow morn
Seems to give forth its light in very scorn
Of our dull, uninspired, snail-paced lives.
Long have I said, how happy he who shrives
To thee! But then I thought on poets gone,
And could not pray:⁠—nor can I now⁠—so on
I move to the end in lowliness