Endymion
by Henry W. Longfellow
First published online on 2010 January 08.
SFFH: Article
The rising moon has hid the stars,
Her level rays, like golden bars,
Lie on the landscape green,
With shadows brown between.
And silver white the river gleams,
As if Diana, in her dreams,
Had dropt her silver bow
Upon the meadows low.
On such a tranquil night as this,
She woke Endymion with a kiss,
When, sleeping in the grove,
He dream’d not of her love.
Like Dian’s kiss, unask’d, unsought
Love gives itself, but is not bought;
Nor voice, nor sound betrays
Its deep, impassion’d gaze.
It comes–the beautiful, the free,
The crown of all humanity–
In silence and alone
To seek the elected one.
It lifts the bows, whose shadows deep
Are Life’s oblivion, the soul’s sleep,
And kisses the closed eyes
Of him who slumbering lies.
O, weary hearts! O, slumbering eyes!
O, drooping souls, whose destinies
Are fraught with fear and pain,
Ye shall be loved again!
No one is so accursed by fate,
No one so utterly desolate,
But some heart, though unknown,
Responds unto its own.
Responds–as if, with unseen wings,
A breath from heaven had touch’d its strings;
And whispers, in its song,
“Where hast thou stay’d so long?”
Mr. Longfellow was born in Portland, in 1807, and served as professor of the French and English languages in Harvard University. He has published “Outre Mer, a Pilgrimage beyond the Sea,” “Hyperion,” “The Spanish Student,” and two volumes of ballads and other poems.
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