| |
| SO hath he fallen, the Endymion of the air, | |
| And so lies down in slumber lapped for aye. | |
| Diana, passing, found his youth too fair, | |
| His soul too fleet and willing to obey. | |
| She swung her golden moon before his eyes— | 5 |
| Dreaming, he rose to follow—and ran—and was away. | |
| |
| His foot was wingèd as the mounting sun. | |
| Earth he disdained—the dusty ways of men | |
| Not yet had learned. His spirit longed to run | |
| With the bright clouds, his brothers, to answer when | 10 |
| The airs were fleetest and could give him hand | |
| Into the starry fields beyond our plodding ken. | |
| |
| All wittingly that glorious way he chose, | |
| And loved the peril when it was most bright. | |
| He tried anew the long-forbidden snows | 15 |
| And like an eagle topped the dropping height | |
| Of Nagenhorn, and still toward Italy | |
| Past peak and cliff pressed on, in glad, unerring flight. | |
| |
| Oh, when the bird lies low with golden wing | |
| Bruisèd past healing by some bitter chance, | 20 |
| Still must its tireless spirit mount and sing | |
| Of meadows green with morning, of the dance | |
| On windy trees, the darting flight away, | |
| And of that last, most blue, triumphant downward glance. | |
| |
| So murmuring of the snow: “The snow, and more, | 25 |
| O God, more snow!” on that last field he lay. | |
| Despair and wonder spent their passionate store | |
| In his great heart, through heaven gone astray, | |
| And early lost. Too far the golden moon | |
| Had swung upon that bright, that long, untraversed way. | 30 |
| |
| Now to lie ended on the murmuring plain— | |
| Ah, this for his bold heart was not the loss, | |
| But that those windy fields he ne’er again | |
| Might try, nor fleet and shimmering mountains cross, | |
| Unfollowed, by a path none other knew: | 35 |
| His bitter woe had here its deep and piteous cause. | |
| |
| Dear toils of youth unfinished! And songs unwritten, left | |
| By young and passionate hearts! O melodies | |
| Unheard, whereof we ever stand bereft! | |
| Clear-singing Schubert, boyish Keats—with these | 40 |
| He roams henceforth, one with the starry band, | |
| Still paying to fairy call and far command | |
| His spirit heed, still winged with golden prophecies. | |
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