Collected Works (Vol. I)

Q2 MYSTERIES: LYRICAL AND DRAMATIC As free as summer-time, to sound or cease: God’s utmost peace Lies like a cloud upon the quiet land. O httle hand ! White hand with rose leaves shed about the Lips, As if my lips Had left their bloom upon it when they kissed, As if'a mist Of God’s delicious dawn had overspread Their face, and fled ! O wonderful fresh blossom of the wood ! O purpling blood ! O azure veins as clear as all the skies! QO longing eyes That look upon me fondly to beget Two faces, set ‘ither like flowers upon their laughing blue, Where morning dew Sparkles with all the passion of the dawn ! The happy lawn Leads, by the stillest avenues, to groves Made soft by loves ; And all the nymphs have made a mossy dell Ward by the well Where even a Satyr might behold the grace Of such a face «As his? who perished for his own delights, So well requites That witching fountain his desire that looks. Two slow bright brooks Encircle it with silver, and the moon Strikes into tune The ripples as they break. For here it was Their steps did pass, Dreamy Endymion’s and Artemis’,? Who bent to kiss Across the moss-grown rocks that build the well : And here they tell 1 Narcissus, a beautiful youth, inaccessible to love. Echo, a nymph enamoured of him, died of neglect. ‘Io punish him, Nemesis caused him to behold his image in a pool; he pined of love for the reflection, and was changed into the flower which still bears his name. 2 The reader may consult Keats’s poem of ‘¢ Endymion.” Of one? beneath the hoary stone who hid And watched unbid When one most holy came across the glade, Who saw a maid So bright that mists were dim upon his eyes, And yet he spies So sweet a vision that his gentle breath Sighed into death: And others say that here the fairies bring The fairy king,? And crown him with a flower of eglantine, And of the vine Twist him a throne made perfect with wild roses, cind gathered posies From all the streams that wander through the vale, And crying, ‘‘ Hail! All hail, most beautiful of all our race !” Cover his face With blossoms gathered from a fairy tree Like foam from sea, So delicate that mortal eyes behold Ephemeral gold Flash, and not see a flower, but say the moon Has shone too soon Anxious to greet Endymion ; and this Most dainty kiss They cover him withal, and Dian sees Through all the trees No pink pale blossom of his tender lips. The little ships Of silver leaf and briar-bloom sail here, No storm to fear, Though butterflies be all their mariners. The whitethroat stirs The beech-leaves to awake the tiny breeze That soothes the seas, And yet gives breath to shake their fairy sails ; Young nightingales, Far through the golden plumage of the night, With strong delight 1 A gentle sophistication of the story of Actaeon who beheld Artemis at the bath, and being changed into a stag, was torn to pieces by her hounds. 2 From sophistication Crowley proceeds to pure invention.