For the unhappy youth-Love! I have felt

So faint a kindness, such a meek surrender

To what my own full thoughts had made too tender,
That but for tears my life had fled away!-

Ye deaf and senseless minutes of the day,
And thou, old forest, hold ye this for true,
There is no lightning, no authentic dew
But in the eye of love: there's not a sound,
Melodious howsoever, can confound

The heavens and earth in one to such a death
As doth the voice of love: there's not a breath
Will mingle kindly with the meadow air,
Till it has panted round, and stolen a share
Of passion from the heart!"-

75

80

Upon a bough

85

He leant, wretched. He surely cannot now

(72-3) The draft reads these two lines thus :

After some beauteous youth-Who, who hath felt
So warm a faintness, such a meek surrender...

and there is a cancelled opening for line 73, As I do now.
(74) In the draft, fair for full.

(76-7) The draft reads as follows:

Sweet shadow, be distinct awhile and stay

While I speak to thee—trust me it is true...

(79) Cancelled reading of the manuscript, a Lover's eye instead of the eye of Love.

(82) The draft reads, correspondingly with the cancelled reading of the finished manuscript in line 79,

As will a lover's voice: there's not a breath...

(85) The draft has the following passage at this point :

Of passion from the heart-Where love is not

Only is solitude-poor shadow ! what

I say thou hearest not! away begone

Thirst for another love: O impious,

That he can even dream upon it thus !—

Thought he, "Why am I not as are the dead,

Since to a woe like this I have been led

90

Through the dark earth, and through the wondrous sea?
Goddess! I love thee not the less: from thee
By Juno's smile I turn not-no, no, no-
While the great waters are at ebb and flow.—
I have a triple soul! O fond pretence-
For both, for both my love is so immense,
I feel my heart is cut for them in twain.”

And so he groan'd, as one by beauty slain. The lady's heart beat quick, and he could see Her gentle bosom heave tumultuously.

He sprang from his green covert : there she lay,

95

100

And leave me prythee with my grief alone!"
The Latmian lean'd his arm upon a bough,
A wretched mortal: what can he do now?
Must he another Love? O impious...

(89-91) In the finished manuscript, the note of interrogation is at the end of line 89 and a full-stop at the end of line 91.

(92) The draft reads Mine own for Goddess.

(94) At this point the draft shows the following variation :

While the fair moon gives light, or rivers flow

My adoration of thee is yet pure

As infants prattling. How is this—why sure
I have a tripple soul !

(97) In the first edition this line is—

I feel my heart is cut in twain for them.

And it is left so in the corrected copy. It was originally written so in the finished manuscript, where, however, the inversion of the last four words is directed in pencil, so that the right reading, that of the text, must have been lost through a series of oversights.

Sweet as a muskrose upon new-made hay;
With all her limbs on tremble, and her eyes
Shut softly up alive. To speak he tries.

"Fair damsel, pity me! forgive that I
Thus violate thy bower's sanctity!

O pardon me, for I am full of grief—
Grief born of thee, young angel! fairest thief!
Who stolen hast away the wings wherewith

I was to top the heavens. Dear maid, sith
Thou art my executioner, and I feel
Loving and hatred, misery and weal,
Will in a few short hours be nothing to me,
And all my story that much passion slew me;
Do smile upon the evening of my days:
And, for my tortur'd brain begins to craze,
Be thou my nurse; and let me understand
How dying I shall kiss that lilly hand.—

Dost weep for me? Then should I be content.
Scowl on, ye fates! until the firmament
Outblackens Erebus, and the full-cavern'd earth
Crumbles into itself. By the cloud girth
Of Jove, those tears have given me a thirst
To meet oblivion."-As her heart would burst
The maiden sobb'd awhile, and then reply'd:
"Why must such desolation betide

105

As that thou speak'st of? Are not these green nooks

110

115

120

125

(104) Here again the draft is fuller,-thus:

Shut softly up alive-Ye harmonies
Ye tranced visions-ye flights ideal
Nothing are ye to life so dainty real
O Lady pity me!

(127) In this line we read speakst in the finished manuscript, but speakest in the first edition.

Empty of all misfortune? Do the brooks
Utter a gorgon voice? Does yonder thrush,
Schooling its half-fledg'd little ones to brush
About the dewy forest, whisper tales?—
Speak not of grief, young stranger, or cold snails
Will slime the rose to night. Though if thou wilt,
• Methinks 'twould be a guilt—a very guilt—
Not to companion thee, and sigh away

The light-the dusk-the dark-till break of day!”
"Dear lady," said Endymion, "'tis past:

130

135

(128) For this choice use of the word empty, compare Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, Act V, Scene II, line 878:

And I shall find you empty of that fault,...

(136) After this line the speech of Phoebe still goes on in the draft; and Endymion's answer varies,—thus:

Canst thou do so? Is there no balm, no cure
Could not a beckoning Hebe soon allure
Thee into Paradise? What sorrowing

So weighs thee down what utmost woe could bring
This madness-Sit thee down by me, and ease
Thine heart in whispers-haply by degrees

I may find out some soothing medicine."-
"Dear Lady," said Endymion, "I pine
I die the tender accents thou hast spoken
Have finish'd all-my heart is lost and broken.
That I may pass in patience still speak :
Let me have music dying, and I seek
No more delight-I bid adieu to all.
Didst thou not after other climates call

And murmur about Indian streams-now, now

I listen, it may save me-O my vow—
Let me have music dying!" The ladye

Sitting beneath the midmost forest tree

With tears of pity sang this roundelay—

It will be remembered that this antiquated use of the word ladye was defended by Coleridge both in theory and in practice. See the Ballad of The Dark Ladye.

I love thee! and my days can never last.
That I may pass in patience still speak :
Let me have music dying, and I seek
No more delight—I bid adieu to all.

Didst thou not after other climates call,

140

And murmur about Indian streams?"-Then she,

Sitting beneath the midmost forest tree,

For pity sang this roundelay

145

"O Sorrow,

Why dost borrow

The natural hue of health, from vermeil lips?—

To give maiden blushes

To the white rose bushes?

Or is't thy dewy hand the daisy tips?

"O Sorrow,

Why dost borrow

The lustrous passion from a falcon-eye?—

To give the glow-worm light?

Or, on a moonless night,

To tinge, on syren shores, the salt sea-spry?

150

155

(151) In the first edition is it; but is't in the manuscript and in the corrected copy.

(154) The draft reads lover's eye for falcon-eye.

(157) Keats has been supposed to have invented the variant spry for spray for convenience of rhyming, just as Shelley has been accused of inventing for like reasons the word uprest, for example, in Laon and Cythna, Canto III, Stanza xxi. Sandys, the translator of Ovid, may not be a very good authority; but he is not improbably Keats's authority for spry, and will certainly do in default of a better. The following couplet is from Sandys's Ovid (Book XI, verses 498-9):

Now tossing Seas appeare to touch the sky,

And wrap their curles in clouds, frotht with their spry. VOL. I.

U