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ENDYMION.

A Poetic Romance.

"THE STRETCHED METRE OF AN AN ANTIQUE SONG."
INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS CHATTERTON.

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
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 ****.

  Upon the sides of Latmos was outspread
A mighty forest; for the moist earth fed
So plenteously all ****-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 ****. 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 ****** 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--
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 '**** 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--
By all the echoes that about thee ring,
Hear us, O satyr king!

  "O Hearkener to the loud clapping shears,
While ever and anon to his shorn peers
A ram goes bleating: Winder of the horn,
When snouted wild-boars routing tender corn
Anger our huntsman: Breather round our farms,
To keep off mildews, and all weather harms:
Strange ministrant of undescribed sounds,
That come a swooning over hollow grounds,
And wither drearily on barren moors:
Dread opener of the mysterious doors
Leading to universal knowledge--see,
Great son of Dryope,
The many that are come to pay their vows
With leaves about their brows!

  Be still the unimaginable lodge
For solitary thinkings; such as dodge
Conception to the very bourne of heaven,
Then leave the naked brain: be still the leaven,
That spreading in this dull and clodded earth
Gives it a touch ethereal--a new birth:
Be still a symbol of immensity;
A firmament reflected in a sea;
An element filling the space between;
An unknown--but no more: we humbly screen
With uplift hands our foreheads, lowly bending,
And giving out a shout most heaven rending,
Conjure thee to receive our humble Paean,
Upon thy Mount Lycean!

  Even while they brought the burden to a close,
A shout from the whole multitude arose,
That lingered in the air like dying rolls
Of abrupt thunder, when Ionian shoals
Of dolphins bob their noses through the brine.
Meantime, on shady levels, mossy fine,
Young companies nimbly began dancing
To the swift treble pipe, and humming string.
Aye, those fair living forms swam heavenly
To tunes forgotten--out of memory:
Fair creatures! whose young children's children bred
Thermopylæ its heroes--not yet dead,
But in old marbles ever beautiful.
High genitors, unconscious did they cull
Time's sweet first-fruits--they danc'd to weariness,
And then in quiet circles did they press
The hillock turf, and caught the latter end
Of some strange history, potent to send
A young mind from its ****** tenement.
Or they might watch the quoit-pitchers, intent
On either side; pitying the sad death
Of Hyacinthus, when the cruel breath
Of Zephyr slew him,--Zephyr penitent,
Who now, ere Phoebus mounts the firmament,
Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain.
The archers too, upon a wider plain,
Beside the feathery whizzing of the shaft,
And the dull twanging bowstring, and the raft
Branch down sweeping from a tall ash top,
Call'd up a thousand thoughts to envelope
Those who would watch. Perhaps, the trembling knee
And frantic gape of lonely Niobe,
Poor, lonely Niobe! when her lovely young
Were dead and gone, and her caressing tongue
Lay a lost thing upon her paly lip,
And very, very deadliness did nip
Her motherly cheeks. Arous'd from this sad mood
By one, who at a distance loud halloo'd,
Uplifting his strong bow into the air,
Many might after brighter visions stare:
After the Argonauts, in blind amaze
Tossing about on Neptune's restless ways,
Until, from the horizon's vaulted side,
There shot a golden splendour far and wide,
Spangling those million poutings of the brine
With quivering ore: 'twas 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
'**** shepherds gone in eld, whose looks increas'd
The silvery setting of their mortal star.
There they discours'd upon the fragile bar
That keeps us from our homes ethereal;
And what our duties there: to nightly call
Vesper, the beauty-crest of summer weather;
To summon all the downiest clouds together
For the sun's purple couch; to emulate
In ministring the potent rule of fate
With speed of fire-tailed exhalations;
To tint her pallid cheek with bloom, who cons
Sweet poesy by moonlight: besides these,
A world of other unguess'd offices.
Anon they wander'd, by divine converse,
Into Elysium; vieing to rehearse
Each one his own anticipated bliss.
One felt heart-certain that he could not miss
His quick gone love, among fair blossom'd boughs,
Where every zephyr-sigh pouts and endows
Her lips with music for the welcoming.
Another wish'd, mid that eternal spring,
To meet his rosy child, with feathery sails,
Sweeping, eye-earnestly, through almond vales:
Who, suddenly, should stoop through the smooth wind,
And with the balmiest leaves his temples bind;
And, ever after, through those regions be
His messenger, his little
And who shall care for that o'er which you weep
Or share the burden of this world's foredoom
Seen starkly? Behold, a haunting specter creeps
Among the binding fates spun on life's loom.
You’ll wake them not to that great misery
Which emptiness of pride has reckless wove
But pluck the web for loss and trembling
Of idols in the soul for which they strove.
Put off your glossy youth and early oaths
Devout nativity; raise up your cup
To ***** Lethe and thunder with the strokes
Of fury, treading out the ripened sup!
They will not bear to flay their sacred cows
But shades of death endure and prostrate bow.

Ages in their veins, more raging, whirl
As titanic potentials’ dreadful might
Turns girl to boy, conversely boy to girl
Unlimbing reason for unreason's fright.
That once gone right, here deftly ventures left
As self-conception staggers to its doom
Bursting the bonds of day and night, distressed
With desperate grasping measures, late and soon.
So set on generation's awesome curve
Of ageless heart and mind, how shall they bear
The die they cast at first when madly swerved
Into contesting congresses of care?
Dividing parts, dissolving in the same
The common wealth, no part the whole maintains.

Boast of the times and gilded privilege
Are these pretended guardians of State
Whose politics of power have sought to bank
Their future 'gainst dissenting arguments.
With rhetoric to foist a brave new age
They come as chaos mages on the brink
Of all disposing will, all ends betrayed
To serve their corporations’ nod and wink.
Auctioning the world, their goods are sold
Commercially with avaricious might
That sanctions lust, in quest of pyrite gold
And pirate earnings, staked upon deceit.
At last, the men of mock integrity
Luring the world to covert slavery!

Hurrah, the master men and lords of time-
From time brought forth, they are the world's latest
Whose overweening strut is in the best
Of culminating age, the mind refined!
Now to and fro they go, their lists increased
With every tally; line for line computes
Their beads of enterprise, the while relieved
Of tribulation, fate of hapless dupes.
Learning is theirs, precepts are theirs to bend;
Lawyers, clerics, politicians rest
Upon this pillar; they can split or mend
The finest lines; no guile their thoughts distress.
Step by step they round the universe
And finite lies to infinite converse!

What pride of theirs that strains for fleeting fame
Seeking to wrest from time the wasting plaque
Of recognition, host to every hack
That postures on the stage of the obscene!
Pretending worth, their practiced scripts dispose
In mocking light an empty dignity
While darkening intents; witless disclosed
On lips and brow their self-important glee.
As if full-wrought by truth's heroic wing
Their pride aspires; on vain conceits they soar
Up through the mist while private songs they sing
In self-made praise for deeds of phantom lore.
From belfries of the schools, in broken flight
They shriek away, hell's banshees of the night!

These timely wise, entranced of mind, decree-
Hear all you simple what we shall disclose
Which craft of our discernment is repose
Of wealth in understanding mastery.
A gift to all, these rich-invested beings
Pretending to resolve profundities
Decoct the world with learned fluency
Of torture ways, all gnostic knots untied.
A flair for comedy, their gelded self
Mounts every snorting bore of certainty
Then armchair resting, pants to yet indulge
Another ******* idol’s reckless scheme.
Some stowaways upon the open seas
And polished sextants of academe!

Here is their derogation, born from creeds
Of judgment in self-righteous confidence
That proves for nothing to the innocent
But swamps life's refugees with cruel conceit.
With ages they have built the edifice
Of dogma; every pit and lion’s maw
Is their contraption, set in consciousness
Of the condemning letter of their laws.
Cunning serpents, masquerading doves
They fashion argument, more vicious wrought
With rationales to blacklist those who strove
To flee their institutions’ heinous plot.
Enamored with a fascist benefit
The systems of the world they implement!

Fanatic men, how bold they tempt the fates
That meet to each the fruits of brutish will
Redoubled, which they’ve spent in kind to date
Upon their brothers, sisters…other self.
They make an estimation, rule the span
Between men; lord over equity
With zero tolerance and brazen hand
To smash upon their consanguinity.
Such is the wicked priesthood’s confidence
In its own judgment, ever owning not
The wrong condemned in others, deep dispensed
To every heart, from roots of life begot.
More wretched they, and haunted with the shame
Of hypocrites, bedeviled by the same!

O law of learning, sum of thinkers' best
Now magnified, ensconced upon the power
Of natal worth and privileged social dower;
Once ruled by you, the Earth pleads for redress.
No scruple sought, no reservation found
To staunch against your certifying will
Which point of iron stylus now furrows
The world at large as object for the ****.
So cart away your pleading victim, mired
In ****** wallows of concupiscence
And grace deny, self-dubbed the doubtless squire-
Errant usurper of the human quest.
How dignified, the rake of your ambition
That promises continual division!
Tanya Chaudhary Aug 2014
The way it began I should have known.
Thinking that it'll work out, how could I be so wrong.
Held the thread of hope for way too long.
But he never came around. He was always gone.
I should have noticed the pattern, the downfall.
Because
**We first made love on a break up song.
Two hundred and forty six plus months
into twenty first century celeb
and anonymous folks alike
gripped courtesy pestilence re: deb
buckle fishtailed, looped, roughed up...
wreaks/wrought havoc across world wide web.

As a secular humanist, I ponder
what (if any) benefit accrued
above any commentary,
yours truly applauds every first responder
as dazed and befuddled stricken wonder...

Explanation, whereby those
espousing religious bent
might attribute global pandemic
moost definitely Earth shaking event
particularly raining down

upon **** sapiens with merciless intent
indiscriminately mowing down,
perhaps... (albeit figuratively) meant
as object lesson... benignly to rent
asunder excessiveness smugness
that doth xcent...

Persons who don egotism
also dare trumpet
absolutism, despotism, elitism,
nepotism, sycophantism, vigilantism...

green lighting (within
red light district) strumpet
paying top dollar to secure former
in league with costliest, sweetist,
and tastiest crumpet.

Virtue and/or admirable human behavior
discerned amidst helter skelter
as moost every sequestered behind closed door
ooh, how challenging for parent(s)

to occupy child less than four
impossible mission to explain ****
roar to the smartest kid, who
most often focuses on self de jure

nevertheless prime opportunity
hashing, learning, sharing...
genealogical folk-lore
more (most) challenging
busying young adults
thank dog me two daughters grown more

independent (at ages 21 and 23 respectively),
versus yours truly
when he still lived at home
with his papa and mama
yearning to live alone
on island paradise way offshore.

I spent interminable and unaccountable
time hermetically sealed within bedroom
imagination roaming courtesy
reading material delving,
futilely escaping doom,

nonetheless luxuriating, plunging... foredoom
think wrath of livid mama and papa,
their embarrassing genetic heirloom
sole son with more'n faulty jibboom
upon me ship of state,
where dark shadows still loom.

Though booth progeny of mine
spared similar fate, and youngest
(behaviorally challenged, perhaps
influenced courtesy Aquarius sign
regarding developmental delay)
while she on furlough

(considered valuable employee
walks along straight dedicated line
at World Market - Bend, Oregon)
these days... motivates
herself walking off calories
after self prepared hearty repast,
she doth dine.
I aver, an auspicious dark shadow(s) will zoom
as if birthed, sans starry eyed nebulous debris
across infinite fantastic space/time catacomb
constituting whirled wide web ringing Gaia's in utero
fallopian youtube from out cosmic podcast womb

closing gap 'twixt outer limits galactic blob
(traveling at hair reed greased lightspeed varoom
ming before twilight zone) as death spurt humanity
descends into black hole sun, sans linkedin kickstarting
permanent grim outlook, a buyer's market vudu boom

adrip oozing quasi ICE C, one trumpeting coxcomb
oblivious, asper whatsapp pining at edge of night,
whereby majority, viz remaining earthlings doth roam
tentatively ensconced in their "FAKE" Taj Mahal tomb,
awaiting rescue attempting, while lined against mushroom

supernova like explosion, each body just another brick
in human wall, where bribery paid to Johnny on the spot
if need arises to use gender neutral unisex restroom
unaware, while remains of day regarding third rock
from sun help at doggone woof lee warp speed loom

ming thru strung out dimensions, on par as (empire)
in final ******* decadent bacchanalian, foredoom,
when afar off (countless light years away), gloom
me salvation will soon be visited upon tattered tribes
prints in shining armoire constitutes developing

picture postcard poem, despite global darkroom
just like in the comix, an unassuming lgbtq migrant
rescues bedraggled human league more like village
people comprising bad company,
war ring MAGA Zion will resume!
She was not even there
But he was still looking
Love in his eyes dry
And the gaze burns all the town

She was on the hills
Walking out of her grave
Burning town warms her hands
From Where did this fire started ?

They were foredoom to die
By the hands of the lover
And it was her destiny
To be cold even near the fire

By Yasmin.Sh🌻

— The End —