Endymion  ::  John Keats

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: 
Its loveliness increases; it will never 
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep 
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep 
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.          
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing 
A flowery band to bind us to the earth, 
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth 
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, 
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways           
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, 
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall 
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, 
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon 
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils           
With the green world they live in; and clear rills 
That for themselves a cooling covert make 
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake, 
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms: 
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms           
We have imagined for the mighty dead; 
All lovely tales that we have heard or read: 
An endless fountain of immortal drink, 
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink. 
 
  Nor do we merely feel these essences           
For one short hour; no, even as the trees 
That whisper round a temple become soon 
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon, 
The passion poesy, glories infinite, 
Haunt us till they become a cheering light           
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast, 
That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast, 
They alway must be with us, or we die. 
 
  Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I 
Will trace the story of Endymion.           
The very music of the name has gone 
Into my being, and each pleasant scene 
Is growing fresh before me as the green 
Of our own vallies: so I will begin 
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;           
Now while the early budders are just new, 
And run in mazes of the youngest hue 
About old forests; while the willow trails 
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails 
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year           
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer 
My little boat, for many quiet hours, 
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers. 
Many and many a verse I hope to write, 
Before the daisies, vermeil rimm'd and white,           
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees 
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas, 
I must be near the middle of my story. 
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary, 
See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,           
With universal tinge of sober gold, 
Be all about me when I make an end. 
And now at once, adventuresome, I send 
My herald thought into a wilderness: 
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress           
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed 
Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed. 
 
  Upon the sides of Latmos was outspread 
A mighty forest; for the moist earth fed 
So plenteously all weed-hidden roots           
Into o'er-hanging boughs, and precious fruits. 
And it had gloomy shades, sequestered deep, 
Where no man went; and if from shepherd's keep 
A lamb strayed far a-down those inmost glens, 
Never again saw he the happy pens           
Whither his brethren, bleating with content, 
Over the hills at every nightfall went. 
Among the shepherds, 'twas believed ever, 
That not one fleecy lamb which thus did sever 
From the white flock, but pass'd unworried           
By angry wolf, or pard with prying head, 
Until it came to some unfooted plains 
Where fed the herds of Pan: ay great his gains 
Who thus one lamb did lose. Paths there were many, 
Winding through palmy fern, and rushes fenny,           
And ivy banks; all leading pleasantly 
To a wide lawn, whence one could only see 
Stems thronging all around between the swell 
Of turf and slanting branches: who could tell 
The freshness of the space of heaven above,           
Edg'd round with dark tree tops? through which a dove 
Would often beat its wings, and often too 
A little cloud would move across the blue. 
 
  Full in the middle of this pleasantness 
There stood a marble altar, with a tress           
Of flowers budded newly; and the dew 
Had taken fairy phantasies to strew 
Daisies upon the sacred sward last eve, 
And so the dawned light in pomp receive. 
For 'twas the morn: Apollo's upward fire           
Made every eastern cloud a silvery pyre 
Of brightness so unsullied, that therein 
A melancholy spirit well might win 
Oblivion, and melt out his essence fine 
Into the winds: rain-scented eglantine            
Gave temperate sweets to that well-wooing sun; 
The lark was lost in him; cold springs had run 
To warm their chilliest bubbles in the grass; 
Man's voice was on the mountains; and the mass 
Of nature's lives and wonders puls'd tenfold,            
To feel this sun-rise and its glories old. 
 
  Now while the silent workings of the dawn 
Were busiest, into that self-same lawn 
All suddenly, with joyful cries, there sped 
A troop of little children garlanded;            
Who gathering round the altar, seemed to pry 
Earnestly round as wishing to espy 
Some folk of holiday: nor had they waited 
For many moments, ere their ears were sated 
With a faint breath of music, which ev'n then            
Fill'd out its voice, and died away again. 
Within a little space again it gave 
Its airy swellings, with a gentle wave, 
To light-hung leaves, in smoothest echoes breaking 
Through copse-clad vallies,—ere their death, oer-taking
The surgy murmurs of the lonely sea. 
 
  And now, as deep into the wood as we 
Might mark a lynx's eye, there glimmered light 
Fair faces and a rush of garments white, 
Plainer and plainer shewing, till at last            
Into the widest alley they all past, 
Making directly for the woodland altar. 
O kindly muse! let not my weak tongue faulter 
In telling of this goodly company, 
Of their old piety, and of their glee:            
But let a portion of ethereal dew 
Fall on my head, and presently unmew 
My soul; that I may dare, in wayfaring, 
To stammer where old Chaucer used to sing. 
 
  Leading the way, young damsels danced along,            
Bearing the burden of a shepherd song; 
Each having a white wicker over brimm'd 
With April's tender younglings: next, well trimm'd, 
A crowd of shepherds with as sunburnt looks 
As may be read of in Arcadian books;            
Such as sat listening round Apollo's pipe, 
When the great deity, for earth too ripe, 
Let his divinity o'er-flowing die 
In music, through the vales of Thessaly: 
Some idly trailed their sheep-hooks on the ground,            
And some kept up a shrilly mellow sound 
With ebon-tipped flutes: close after these, 
Now coming from beneath the forest trees, 
A venerable priest full soberly, 
Begirt with ministring looks: alway his eye            
Stedfast upon the matted turf he kept, 
And after him his sacred vestments swept. 
From his right hand there swung a vase, milk-white, 
Of mingled wine, out-sparkling generous light; 
And in his left he held a basket full            
Of all sweet herbs that searching eye could cull: 
Wild thyme, and valley-lilies whiter still 
Than Leda's love, and cresses from the rill. 
His aged head, crowned with beechen wreath, 
Seem'd like a poll of ivy in the teeth            
Of winter hoar. Then came another crowd 
Of shepherds, lifting in due time aloud 
Their share of the ditty. After them appear'd, 
Up-followed by a multitude that rear'd 
Their voices to the clouds, a fair wrought car,            
Easily rolling so as scarce to mar 
The freedom of three steeds of dapple brown: 
Who stood therein did seem of great renown 
Among the throng. His youth was fully blown, 
Shewing like Ganymede to manhood grown;            
And, for those simple times, his garments were 
A chieftain king's: beneath his breast, half bare, 
Was hung a silver bugle, and between 
His nervy knees there lay a boar-spear keen. 
A smile was on his countenance; he seem'd,            
To common lookers on, like one who dream'd 
Of idleness in groves Elysian: 
But there were some who feelingly could scan 
A lurking trouble in his nether lip, 
And see that oftentimes the reins would slip            
Through his forgotten hands: then would they sigh, 
And think of yellow leaves, of owlets cry, 
Of logs piled solemnly.—Ah, well-a-day, 
Why should our young Endymion pine away! 
 
  Soon the assembly, in a circle rang'd,            
Stood silent round the shrine: each look was chang'd 
To sudden veneration: women meek 
Beckon'd their sons to silence; while each cheek 
Of virgin bloom paled gently for slight fear. 
Endymion too, without a forest peer,            
Stood, wan, and pale, and with an awed face, 
Among his brothers of the mountain chase. 
In midst of all, the venerable priest 
Eyed them with joy from greatest to the least, 
And, after lifting up his aged hands,            
Thus spake he: "Men of Latmos! shepherd bands! 
Whose care it is to guard a thousand flocks: 
Whether descended from beneath the rocks 
That overtop your mountains; whether come 
From vallies where the pipe is never dumb;            
Or from your swelling downs, where sweet air stirs 
Blue hare-bells lightly, and where prickly furze 
Buds lavish gold; or ye, whose precious charge 
Nibble their fill at ocean's very marge, 
Whose mellow reeds are touch'd with sounds forlorn            
By the dim echoes of old Triton's horn: 
Mothers and wives! who day by day prepare 
The scrip, with needments, for the mountain air; 
And all ye gentle girls who foster up 
Udderless lambs, and in a little cup            
Will put choice honey for a favoured youth: 
Yea, every one attend! for in good truth 
Our vows are wanting to our great god Pan. 
Are not our lowing heifers sleeker than 
Night-swollen mushrooms? Are not our wide plains            
Speckled with countless fleeces? Have not rains 
Green'd over April's lap? No howling sad 
Sickens our fearful ewes; and we have had 
Great bounty from Endymion our lord. 
The earth is glad: the merry lark has pour'd            
His early song against yon breezy sky, 
That spreads so clear o'er our solemnity." 
 
  Thus ending, on the shrine he heap'd a spire 
Of teeming sweets, enkindling sacred fire; 
Anon he stain'd the thick and spongy sod            
With wine, in honour of the shepherd-god. 
Now while the earth was drinking it, and while 
Bay leaves were crackling in the fragrant pile, 
And gummy frankincense was sparkling bright 
'Neath smothering parsley, and a hazy light            
Spread greyly eastward, thus a chorus sang: 
 
  "O THOU, whose mighty palace roof doth hang 
From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth 
Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death 
Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness;            
Who lov'st to see the hamadryads dress 
Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels darken; 
And through whole solemn hours dost sit, and hearken 
The dreary melody of bedded reeds�?nbsp;
In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds            
The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth; 
Bethinking thee, how melancholy loth 
Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx—do thou now, 
By thy love's milky brow! 
By all the trembling mazes that she ran,            
Hear us, great Pan! 
 
  "O thou, for whose soul-soothing quiet, turtles 
Passion their voices cooingly 'mong myrtles, 
What time thou wanderest at eventide 
Through sunny meadows, that outskirt the side            
Of thine enmossed realms: O thou, to whom 
Broad leaved fig trees even now foredoom 
Their ripen'd fruitage; yellow girted bees 
Their golden honeycombs; our village leas 
Their fairest-blossom'd beans and poppied corn;            
The chuckling linnet its five young unborn, 
To sing for thee; low creeping strawberries 
Their summer coolness; pent up butterflies 
Their freckled wings; yea, the fresh budding year 
All its completions—be quickly near,            
By every wind that nods the mountain pine, 
O forester divine! 
 
  "Thou, to whom every fawn and satyr flies 
For willing service; whether to surprise 
The squatted hare while in half sleeping fit;            
Or upward ragged precipices flit 
To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw; 
Or by mysterious enticement draw 
Bewildered shepherds to their path again; 
Or to tread breathless round the frothy main,            
And gather up all fancifullest shells 
For thee to tumble into Naiads' cells, 
And, being hidden, laugh at their out-peeping; 
Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping, 
The while they pelt each other on the crown            
With silvery oak apples, and fir cones brown�?nbsp;
By all the echoes that about thee ring, 
Hear us, O satyr king! 

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