My children fair, my lovely girls and boys! I will forget them; I will pass these joys; Ask nought so heavenward, so too-too high: Only I pray, as fairest boon, to die,
Or be deliver❜d from this cumbrous flesh, From this gross, detestable, filthy mesh, And merely given to the cold bleak air. Have mercy, Goddess! Circe, feel my prayer !'
"That curst magician's name fell icy numb Upon my wild conjecturing: truth had come Naked and sabre-like against my heart. I saw a fury whetting a death-dart; And my slain spirit, overwrought with fright, Fainted away in that dark lair of night. Think, my deliverer, how desolate
My waking must have been! disgust and hate, And terrors manifold divided me
A spoil amongst them. I prepared to flee Into the dungeon core of that wild wood : I fled three days-when lo! before me stood Glaring the angry witch. O Dis, even now, A clammy dew is beading on my brow, At mere remembering her pale laugh, and curse. Ha ha! Sir Dainty! there must be a nurse Made of rose-leaves and thistle-down, express, To cradle thee, my sweet, and lull thee: yes, I am too flinty-hard for thy nice touch: My tenderest squeeze is but a giant's clutch. So, fairy-thing, it shall have lullabies Unheard of yet; and it shall still its cries Upon some breast more lily-feminine. Oh, no-it shall not pine, and pine, and pine More than one pretty, trifling thousand years; And then 't were pity, but fate's gentle shears Cut short its immortality. Sea-flirt! Young dove of the waters! truly I'll not hurt One hair of thine: see how I weep and sigh, That our heart-broken parting is so nigh. And must we part? Ah, yes, it must be so. Yet ere thou leavest me in utter woe,
Let me sob over thee my last adieus,
And speak a blessing: Mark me! thou hast thews
Immortal, for thou art of heavenly race : But such a love is mine, that here I chase Eternally away from thee all bloom
Of youth, and destine thee towards a tomb. Hence shalt thou quickly to the watery vast; And there, ere many days be overpast, Disabled age shall seize thee; and even then Thou shalt not go the way of aged men ; But live and wither, cripple and still breathe Ten hundred years which gone, I then bequeath Thy fragile bones to unknown burial.
Adieu, sweet love, adieu !'-As shot stars fall, She fled ere I could groan for mercy. Stung And poison'd was my spirit: despair sung A war-song of defiance 'gainst all hell. A hand was at my shoulder to compel My sullen steps; another 'fore my eyes Moved on with pointed finger. In this guise Enforced, at the last by ocean's foam
I found me; by my fresh, my native home, Its tempering coolness, to my life akin, Came salutary as I waded in ;
And, with a blind voluptuous rage, I gave
Battle to the swollen billow-ridge, and drave
Large froth before me, while there yet remain'd
Hale strength, nor from my bones all marrow drain'd.
"Young lover, I must weep-such hellish spite With dry cheek who can tell? While thus my might Proving upon this element, dismay'd,
Upon a dead thing's face my hand I laid ;
I look'd-'t was Scylla! Cursed, cursed Circe ! O vulture-witch, hast never heard of mercy! Could not thy harshest vengeance be content, But thou must nip this tender innocent Because I loved her ?-Cold, O cold indeed Were her fair limbs, and like a common weed The sea-swell took her hair. Dead as she was I clung about her waist, nor ceased to pass Fleet as an arrow through unfathom❜d brine, Until there shone a fabric crystalline,
Ribb'd and inlaid with coral, pebble, and pearl. Headlong I darted; at one eager swirl
Gain'd its bright portal, enter'd, and behold! "T was vast, and desolate, and icy-cold; And all around-But wherefore this to thee Who in few minutes more thyself shalt see?— I left poor Scylla in a niche and fled.
My fever'd parchings up, my scathing dread Met palsy half way soon these limbs became Gaunt, wither'd, sapless, feeble, cramp'd, and lame.
"Now let me pass a cruel, cruel space, Without one hope, without one faintest trace Of mitigation, or redeeming bubble
Of colour'd phantasy; for I fear 't would trouble Thy brain to loss of reason: and next tell How a restoring chance came down to quell One half of the witch in me.
Sitting upon a rock above the spray,
I saw grow up from the horizon's brink A gallant vessel soon she seem'd to sink Away from me again, as though her course Had been resumed in spite of hindering force- So vanish'd and not long, before arose
Dark clouds, and muttering of winds morose. Old Eolus would stifle his mad spleen, But could not, therefore all the billows green Toss'd up the silver spume against the clouds. The tempest came: I saw that vessel's shrouds In perilous bustle; while upon the deck Stood trembling creatures. I beheld the wreck; The final gulfing; the poor struggling souls: I heard their cries amid loud thunder-rolls. O they had all been saved but crazed eld Annull'd my vigorous cravings: and thus quell'd And curb'd, think on 't, O Latmian! did I sit Writhing with pity, and a cursing fit
Against that hell-born Circe. The crew had gone, By one and one, to pale oblivion ;
And I was gazing on the surges prone,
With many a scalding tear, and many a groan, When at my feet emerged an old man's hand, Grasping this scroll, and this same slender wand.
I knelt with pain-reach'd out my hand-had grasp'd These treasures-touch'd the knuckles-they unclasp'd- I caught a finger: but the downward weight O'erpower'd me-it sank. Then 'gan abate
The storm, and through chill aguish gloom outburst The comfortable sun. I was athirst
To search the book, and in the warming air Parted its dripping leaves with eager care. Strange matters did it treat of, and drew on My soul page after page, till well nigh won Into forgetfulness; when, stupified,
I read these words, and read again, and tried My eyes against the heavens, and read again. O what a load of misery and pain
Each Atlas-line bore off!-a shine of hope Came gold around me, cheering me to cope Strenuous with hellish tyranny. Attend! For thou hast brought their promise to an end.
"In the wide sea there lives a forlorn wretch, Doom'd with enfeebled carcase to outstretch His loathed existence through ten centuries, And then to die alone. Who can devise A total opposition? No one. One million times ocean must ebb and flow, And he oppressed. Yet he shall not die, These things accomplish'd :—If he utterly Scans all the depths of magic, and expounds The meanings of all motions, shapes, and sounds; If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die. Moreover, and in chief, He must pursue this task of joy and grief Most piously ;-all lovers tempest-tost, And in the savage overwhelming lost, He shall deposit side by side, until Time's creeping shall the dreary space fulfil : Which done, and all these labours ripened, A youth, by heavenly power loved and led, Shall stand before him; whom he shall direct How to consummate all. The youth elect Must do the thing, or both will be destroy'd.''
"Then," cried the young Endymion, overjoy'd,
"We are twin brothers in this destiny! Say, I entreat thee, what achievement high Is, in this restless world, for me reserved.
What! if from thee my wandering feet had swerved, Had we both perish'd ?"-" Look !" the sage replied, "Dost thou not mark a gleaming through the tide, Of divers brilliances? 't is the edifice
I told thee of, where lovely Scylla lies; And where I have enshrined piously
All lovers, whom fell storms have doom'd to die Throughout my bondage." Thus discoursing, on They went till unobscured the porches shone; Which hurryingly they gain'd, and enter'd straight. Sure never since king Neptune held his state Was seen such wonder underneath the stars. Turn to some level plain where haughty Mars Has legion'd all his battle; and behold How every soldier, with firm foot, doth hold His even breast: see, many steeled squares, And rigid ranks of iron-whence who dares One step? Imagine further, line by line, These warrior thousands on the field supine :- So in that crystal place, in silent rows, Poor lovers lay at rest from joys and woes.
The stranger from the mountains, breathless, traced Such thousands of shut eyes in order placed;
Such ranges of white feet, and patient lips
All ruddy, for here death no blossom nips.
He mark'd their brows and foreheads; saw their hair Put sleekly on one side with nicest care;
And each one's gentle wrists, with reverence,
Put cross-wise to its heart.
(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 :
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