Spangling those million poutings of the brine With quivering ore: 't was even an awful shine From the exaltation of Apollo's bow; A heavenly beacon in their dreary woe. Who thus were ripe for high contemplating, Might turn their steps towards the sober ring Where sat Endymion and the aged priest 'Mong shepherds gone in eld, whose looks increased The silvery setting of their mortal star. There they discoursed upon the fragile bar 360 That keeps us from our homes ethereal; To summon all the downiest clouds together To tint her pallid cheek with bloom, who Who, suddenly, should stoop through the smooth wind, And with the balmiest leaves his temples bind; And, ever after, through those regions be In times long past; to sit with them, and talk Of all the chances in their earthly walk; Comparing, joyfully, their plenteous stores Of happiness, to when upon the moors, 390 Benighted, close they huddled from the cold, And shared their famish'd scrips. Thus all out-told Their fond imaginations, saving him Whose eyelids curtain'd up their jewels dim, Endymion: yet hourly had he striven Guarding his forehead, with her round elbow, From low-grown branches, and his footsteps slow From stumbling over stumps and hillocks small; Until they came to where these streamlets fall, Down in the bluebells, or a wren light rustling Among sere leaves and twigs, might all be heard. O magic sleep! O comfortable bird, That broodest o'er the troubled sea of the mind With mingled bubblings and a gentle Till it is hush'd and smooth! O unconfined That but one night had wrought this flowery spell; And, sitting down close by, began to muse What it might mean. Perhaps, thought I, Morpheus, In passing here, his owlet pinions shook; Or, it may be, ere matron Night uptook 561 Her ebon urn, young Mercury, by stealth, Had dipt his rod in it: such garland wealth Came not by common growth. Thus on I thought, Until my head was dizzy and distraught. Moreover, through the dancing poppies stole A breeze, most softly lulling to my soul; 570 The which became more strange, and spring, cavern Could figure out and to conception bring From such high soaring by a downward glance: So kept me steadfast in that airy trance, And plays about its fancy, till the stings More bluely vein'd, more soft, more whitely sweet Ah, desperate mortal! I ev'n dared to press Of newest joys upon that alp. Sometimes |