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Title: Endymion
Author: Rennell Rodd [
More Titles by Rodd]
She came upon me in the middle day,
Bowed o'er the waters of a mountain mere;
Where dimly mirrored in the ripple's play
I saw some fair thing near.
I saw the waters lapping round her feet,
The widening rings spread, follow out and die,
I saw the mirror and the mirrored meet,
And heard a voice hard by.
So I, Endymion, who lay bathing there,
Half-hidden in the coolness of the lake,
Looked up and swept away my long wild hair,
And knew a goddess spake;
A form white limbed and peerless, far above
The very fairest of imagined things,
The perfect vision of a dream of love
Stepped through the water-rings;
That breathed soft names and drew me to her arms,
White arms and clinging in a long caress,
And won me willing, by the magic charms
Of perfect loveliness:
Till on my breast a throbbing bosom lies;
The dim hills waver and the dark woods roll,
For all the longing of two glorious eyes
Takes hold upon my soul.
Then only when the sudden darkness fell
Upon the silver of the mountain mere,
And through the pine trees of the slanting dell,
The moon rose cold and clear,
I seemed alone upon the dewy shore,--
For she had left me as she came unwarned;--
And fell from sighing into sleep, before
The summer morning dawned.
What wonder now I find no maiden fair
Who dwells between these mountains and the seas?
And go unloving and unloved, or ere
I turn to such as these.
What wonder if the light of those wide eyes
Makes other eyes seem cold; for that loud laughter
Lost love has nothing left but sighs
For all the time hereafter.
Yet better so, far better, no regret
Can touch my heart for that sweet memory's sake,
But only sighing for the sun that set
Behind the summer lake.
* * * * *
But yestermorn it was, the second night
Comes softly stealing over yon blue steep;
The world grows silent in the fading light,
There is no joy but sleep.
--I cannot bear her fair face in the skies
Beyond the drowsy waving of the trees,--
A soft breeze kisses round my heavy eyes,
A restful summer breeze.
What means this dreamless apathy of sleep?
--A mist steals over the dim lake, the shore,
Until my closing eyes forget to weep--
Oh, let me wake no more!
[The end]
Rennell Rodd's poem: Endymion
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