"Royal Maud From the thronged towers of Lincoln hath looked down, Like Pallas from the walls of Ilion;"
and we cannot discover that any more credit is due to Keats for dribbling out his tritenesses about Apollo and the Muses than to any Akenside, Mason, or Hayley, of them all. At times, however, there is a genuine tone of _enjoyment_ in these utterances sufficient to persuade us that the subject had really taken possession of his mind, and that he could feel Grecian mythology, not merely as a convenient vehicle for rhetorical personifications, but as an ever-vital embodiment of ideas of beauty in forms of beauty. In the early and partly boyish poem, "I stood tip-toe upon a little hill," a good deal of space is devoted to showing that classical myths are an outcome of eager sensitiveness to the lovely things of Nature: the tales of Psyche, Pan and Sirynx, Narcissus, are cited in confirmation--and finally Diana and Endymion, in the following lines:--
"Where had he been from whose warm head outflew That sweetest of all songs, that ever new, That aye-refreshing pure deliciousness Coming ever to bless The wanderer by moonlight? to him bringing Shapes from the invisible world, unearthly singing From out the middle air, from flowery nests, And from the pillowy silkiness that rests Full in the speculation of the stars. Ah surely he had burst our mortal bars: Into some wondrous region he had gone To search for thee, divine Endymion. He was a poet, sure a lover too, Who stood on Latmus' top what time there blew Soft breezes from the myrtle-vale below, And brought--in faintness solemn, sweet, and slow-- A hymn from Dian's temple, while upswelling The incense went to her own starry dwelling. But, though her face was clear as infants' eyes, Though she stood smiling o'er the sacrifice, The poet wept at her so piteous fate-- Wept that such beauty should be desolate; So in fine wrath some golden sounds he won, And gave meek Cynthia her Endymion. Queen of the wide air, thou most lovely queen Of all the brightness that mine eyes have seen, As thou exceedest all things in thy shine, So every tale does this sweet tale of thine. Oh for three words of honey that I might Tell but one wonder of thy bridal night! Where distant ships do seem to show their keels Phoebus awhile delayed his mighty wheels, And turned to smile upon thy bashful eyes Ere he his unseen pomp would solemnize. * * * * * Cynthia, I cannot tell the greater blisses That followed thine and thy dear shepherd's kisses: Was there a poet born?"