No More Learning

19. _faint-lipp'd. _ Cf. ii. 270, 'mouthed shell. '

l. 23. _Cyclades. _ Islands in the Aegean sea, so called because they
surrounded Delos in a circle.

l. 24. _Delos_, the island where Apollo was born.

PAGE 193. l. 31. _mother fair_, Leto (Latona).

l. 32. _twin-sister_, Artemis (Diana).

l. 40. _murmurous . . . waves. _ We hear their soft breaking.

PAGE 196. ll. 81-2. Cf. _Lamia_, i. 75.

l. 82. _Mnemosyne_, daughter of Coelus and Terra, and mother of the
Muses. Her name signifies Memory.

l. 86. Cf. _Samson Agonistes_, ll. 80-2.

l. 87. Cf. _Merchant of Venice_, I. i. 1-7.

l. 92. _liegeless_, independent--acknowledging no allegiance.

l. 93. _aspirant_, ascending. The air will not bear him up.

PAGE 197. l. 98. _patient . . . moon. _ Cf. i. 353, 'patient stars. '
Their still, steady light.

l. 113. So Apollo reaches his divinity--by knowledge which includes
experience of human suffering--feeling 'the giant-agony of the world'.

PAGE 198. l. 114. _gray_, hoary with antiquity.

l. 128. _immortal death. _ Cf. Swinburne's _Garden of Proserpine_, st. 7.

Who gathers all things mortal
With cold immortal hands.

PAGE 199. l. 136. Filled in, in pencil, in a transcript of _Hyperion_ by
Keats's friend Richard Woodhouse--

Glory dawn'd, he was a god.


FOOTNOTES:

[245:1] 'If any apology be thought necessary for the appearance of the
unfinished poem of Hyperion, the publishers beg to state that they alone
are responsible, as it was printed at their particular request, and
contrary to the wish of the author. The poem was intended to have been
of equal length with Endymion, but the reception given to that work
discouraged the author from proceeding. '

[247:1]

e. g. i. 56 Knows thee not, thus afflicted, for a god
i. 206 save what solemn tubes . . . gave
ii. 70 that second war
Not long delayed.

[247:2]

e. g. ii. 8 torrents hoarse
32 covert drear
i. 265 season due
286 plumes immense

[247:3]

e. g. i. 35 How beautiful . . . self
182 While sometimes . . . wondering men
ii. 116, 122 Such noise . . . pines.

[247:4] e. g. ii. 79 No shape distinguishable. Cf. _Paradise Lost_, ii.
667.

i. 2 breath of morn. Cf. _Paradise Lost_, iv. 641.


HENRY FROWDE, M. A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK, TORONTO AND MELBOURNE



* * * * * * *



TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:


Line numbers are placed every ten lines. In the original, due to space
constraints, this is not always the case.

On page 237, the note for l. 25 refers to "_Lamia_, i. 9, note". There
is no such note.

The following words appear with and without hyphens. They have been left
as in the original.

bed-side bedside
church-yard churchyard
death-bell deathbell
demi-god demigod
no-where nowhere
re-united reunited
sun-rise sunrise
under-grove undergrove
under-song undersong

The following words have variations in spelling. They have been left as
in the original.

AEolian Aeolian
Amaz'd Amazed
branch-charmed Branch-charmed
faery fairy
should'st shouldst
splendor splendour

The following words use an oe ligature in the poems but not in the notes
section.

Coeus
Coelus
Phoebe Phoebe's Phoebean
Phoenician



***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KEATS: POEMS PUBLISHED IN 1820***


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poetry.







ENDYMION:

A Poetic Romance.


BY JOHN KEATS.

"THE STRETCHED METRE OF AN ANTIQUE SONG. "

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR TAYLOR AND HESSEY,
93, FLEET STREET.
1818.

INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS CHATTERTON.




PREFACE.


Knowing within myself the manner in which this Poem has been
produced, it is not without a feeling of regret that I make it
public.

What manner I mean, will be quite clear to the reader, who must soon
perceive great inexperience, immaturity, and every error denoting a
feverish attempt, rather than a deed accomplished. The two first
books, and indeed the two last, I feel sensible are not of such
completion as to warrant their passing the press; nor should they if
I thought a year's castigation would do them any good;--it will not:
the foundations are too sandy. It is just that this youngster should
die away: a sad thought for me, if I had not some hope that while it
is dwindling I may be plotting, and fitting myself for verses fit to
live.

This may be speaking too presumptuously, and may deserve a
punishment: but no feeling man will be forward to inflict it: he will
leave me alone, with the conviction that there is not a fiercer hell
than the failure in a great object. This is not written with the
least atom of purpose to forestall criticisms of course, but from the
desire I have to conciliate men who are competent to look, and who do
look with a zealous eye, to the honour of English literature.

The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a
man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the
soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life
uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted: thence proceeds mawkishness,
and all the thousand bitters which those men I speak of must
necessarily taste in going over the following pages.

I hope I have not in too late a day touched the beautiful mythology
of Greece, and dulled its brightness: for I wish to try once more,
before I bid it farewel.

_Teignmouth,
April 10, 1818. _




ERRATUM.


Page 108, line 4 from the bottom, for "her" read "his. "




ENDYMION.

BOOK I.


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 10
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 20
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 30
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; 40
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, 50
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 60
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 70
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, 80
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 90
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 100
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; 110
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, o'ertaking
The surgy murmurs of the lonely sea. 121

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: 130
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; 140
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 150
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 160
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.