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| LONE upon a mountain, the pine-trees wailing round him, | |
| Lone upon a mountain the Grecian youth is laid; | |
| Sleep, mystic sleep, for many a year has bound him, | |
| Yet his beauty, like a statue’s, pale and fair, is undecayed. | |
| When will he awaken? | 5 |
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| When will he awaken? a loud voice hath been crying | |
| Night after night, and the cry has been in vain; | |
| Winds, woods, and waves found echoes for replying, | |
| But the tones of the beloved ones were never heard again. | |
| When will he awaken? | 10 |
| Asked the midnight’s silver queen. | |
| |
| Never mortal eye has looked upon his sleeping; | |
| Parents, kindred, comrades, have mourned for him as dead; | |
| By day the gathered clouds have had him in their keeping, | |
| And at night the solemn shadows round his rest are shed. | 15 |
| When will he awaken? | |
| |
| Long has been the cry of faithful Love’s imploring; | |
| Long has Hope been watching with soft eyes fixed above; | |
| When will the Fates, the life of life restoring, | |
| Own themselves vanquished by much-enduring Love? | 20 |
| When will he awaken? | |
| Asks the midnight’s weary queen. | |
| |
| Beautiful the sleep that she has watched untiring, | |
| Lighted up with visions from yonder radiant sky, | |
| Full of an immortal’s glorious inspiring, | 25 |
| Softened by a woman’s meek and loving sigh. | |
| When will he awaken? | |
| |
| He has been dreaming of old heroic stories, | |
| And the poet’s world has entered in his soul; | |
| He has grown conscious of life’s ancestral glories, | 30 |
| When sages and when kings first upheld the mind’s control. | |
| When will he awaken? | |
| Asks the midnight’s stately queen. | |
| |
| Lo, the appointed midnight! the present hour is fated! | |
| It is Endymion’s planet that rises on the air; | 35 |
| How long, how tenderly his goddess Love has waited, | |
| Waited with a love too mighty for despair! | |
| Soon he will awaken. | |
| |
| Soft amid the pines is a sound as if of singing, | |
| Tones that seem the lute’s from the breathing flowers depart; | 40 |
| Not a wind that wanders o’er Mount Latmos but is bringing | |
| Music that is murmured from Nature’s inmost heart. | |
| Soon he will awaken | |
| To his and midnight’s queen! | |
| |
| Lovely is the green earth,—she knows the hour is holy; | 45 |
| Starry are the heavens, lit with eternal joy; | |
| Light like their own is dawning sweet and slowly | |
| O’er the fair and sculptured forehead of that yet dreaming boy. | |
| Soon he will awaken! | |
| |
| Red as the red rose towards the morning turning, | 50 |
| Warms the youth’s lip to the watcher’s near his own; | |
| While the dark eyes open, bright, intense, and burning | |
| With a life more glorious than, ere they closed, was known. | |
| Yes, he has awakened | |
| For the midnight’s happy queen! | 55 |
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| What is this old history, but a lesson given, | |
| How true love still conquers by the deep strength of truth,— | |
| How all the impulses, whose native home is heaven, | |
| Sanctify the visions of hope and faith and youth? | |
| ’T is for such they waken! | 60 |
| |
| When every worldly thought is utterly forsaken, | |
| Comes the starry midnight, felt by life’s gifted few; | |
| Then will the spirit from its earthly sleep awaken | |
| To a being more intense, more spiritual, and true. | |
| So doth the soul awaken, | 65 |
| Like that youth to night’s fair queen! | |
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