by old Rhadamanthus’ tongue of doom.
This dusk religion, pomp of solitude,
And the Promethean clay by thief endued,
By old Saturnus’ forelock, by his head
Shook with eternal palsy, I did wed
Myself to things of light from infancy;
And thus to be cast out, thus lorn to die,
Is sure enough to make a mortal man
Grow impious.” So he inwardly began
On things for which no wording can be found;
Deeper and deeper sinking, until drown’d
Beyond the reach of music: for the choir
Of Cynthia he heard not, though rough brier
Nor muffling thicket interposed to dull
The vesper hymn, far swollen, soft and full,
Through the dark pillars of those sylvan aisles.
He saw not the two maidens, nor their smiles,
Wan as primroses gather’d at midnight
By chilly-finger’d spring. “Unhappy wight!
Endymion!” said Peona, “we are here!
What wouldst thou ere we all are laid on bier?
Then he embraced her, and his lady’s hand
Press’d, saying: “Sister, I would have command,
If it were heaven’s will, on our sad fate.”
At which that dark-eyed stranger stood elate
And said, in a new voice, but sweet as love,
To Endymion’s amaze: “By Cupid’s dove,
And so thou shalt! and by the lily truth
Of my own breast thou shalt, beloved youth!”
And as she spake, into her face there came
Light, as reflected from a silver flame:
Her long black hair swell’d ampler, in display
Full golden; in her eyes a brighter day
Dawn’d blue, and full of love. Aye, he beheld
Phœbe, his passion! joyous she upheld
Her lucid bow, continuing thus: “Drear, drear
Has our delaying been; but foolish fear
Withheld me first; and then decrees of fate;
And then ’twas fit that from this mortal state
Thou shouldst, my love, by some unlook’d-for change
Be spiritualized. Peona, we shall range
These forests, and to thee they safe shall be
As was thy cradle; hither shalt thou flee
To meet us many a time.” Next Cynthia bright
Peona kiss’d, and bless’d with fair good night:
Her brother kiss’d her too, and knelt adown
Before his goddess, in a blissful swoon.
She gave her fair hands to him, and behold,
Before three swiftest kisses he had told,
They vanish’d far away!—Peona went
Home through the gloomy wood in wonderment.
On Oxford
The Gothic looks solemn,
The plain Doric column
Supports an old Bishop and Crozier;
The mouldering arch,
Shaded o’er by a larch,
Stands next door to Wilson the Hosier.
Vice,—that is, by turns,—
O’er pale faces mourns
The black tassell’d trencher and common hat;
The charity boy sings,
The Steeple-bell rings
And as for the Chancellor—dominat.
There are plenty of trees,
And plenty of ease,
And plenty of fat deer for Parsons;
And when it is venison,
Short is the benison,—
Then each on a leg or thigh fastens.
On ⸻
Think not of it, sweet one, so;—
Give it not a tear;
Sigh thou mayst, and bid it go
Any—any where.
Do not look so sad, sweet one,—
Sad and fadingly;
Shed one drop, then it is gone,
Oh! ’twas born to die!
Still so pale? then dearest weep;
Weep, I’ll count the tears,
For each will I invent a bliss
For thee in after years.
Brighter has it left thine eyes
Than a sunny rill;
And thy whispering melodies
Are more tender still.
Yet—as all things mourn awhile
At fleeting blisses;
E’en let us too; but be our dirge
A dirge of kisses.
Lines
Unfelt, unheard, unseen,
I’ve left my little queen,
Her languid arms in silver slumber lying:
Ah! through their nestling touch,
Who—who could tell how much
There is for madness—cruel, or complying?
Those faery lids how sleek!
Those lips how moist!—they speak,
In ripest quiet, shadows of sweet sounds:
Into my fancy’s ear
Melting a burden dear,
How “Love doth know no fulness, and no bounds.”
True!—tender monitors!
I bend unto your laws:
This sweetest day for dalliance was born!
So, without more ado,
I’ll feel my heaven anew,
For all the blushing of the hasty morn.
Stanzas
In a drear-nighted December
Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne’er remember
Their green felicity:
The north cannot undo them,
With a sleety whistle through them
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.
In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy brook,
Thy bubblings ne’er remember
Apollo’s summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting,
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting
About the frozen time.
Ah! would ’twere so with many
A gentle girl and boy!
But were there ever any
Writh’d not at passèd joy?
To know the change and feel it,
When there is none to heal it,
Nor numbèd sense to steal it,
Was never said in rhyme.
To a Cat
Cat! who hast pass’d thy grand climacteric,
How many mice and rats hast in thy days
Destroy’d?—How many tit-bits stolen? Gaze
With those bright languid segments green, and prick
Those velvet ears—but pr’ythee do not stick
Thy latent talons in me—and upraise
Thy gentle mew—and tell me all thy frays
Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick:
Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists
For all the wheezy asthma,—and for all
Thy tail’s tip is nick’d off—and though the fists
Of many a maid has given thee many a maul,
Still is that fur as soft as when the lists
In youth thou enter’dst on glass-bottled wall.
Sharing Eve’s Apple
O blush not so! O blush not so!
Or I shall think you knowing;
And if you smile the blushing while,
Then maidenheads are going.
There’s a blush for won’t, and a blush for shan’t,
And a blush for having done it:
There’s a blush for thought and a blush for nought,
And a blush for just begun it.
O sigh not so! O sigh not so!
For it sounds of Eve’s sweet Pippin;
By these loosen’d lips you have tasted the pips
And fought in an amorous nipping.
Will you play once more at nice-cut-core,
For it only will last our youth out,
And we have the prime of the kissing time,
We have not one sweet tooth out.
There’s a sigh for yes, and a sigh for no,
And a sigh for I can’t bear it!
O what can be done, shall we stay or run?
O cut the sweet apple and share it!
