As feels a dreamer what doth most create His own particular fright, so these three felt: Or like one who, in after ages, knelt 900 To Lucifer or Baal, when he'd pine After a little sleep: or when in mine Far under-ground, a sleeper meets his friends Who know him not. Each diligently bends Towards common thoughts and things for very fear; Striving their ghastly malady to cheer, By thinking it a thing of yes and no, That housewives talk of. But the spirit-blow Was struck, and all were dreamers. At the last Endymion said: "Are not our fates all cast? 910 Why stand we here? Adieu, ye tender pair! Adieu!" Whereat those maidens, with wild stare, Walk'd dizzily away. Pained and hot His eyes went after them, until they got Near to a cypress grove, whose deadly maw, In one swift moment, would what then he saw Engulph for ever. "Stay!" he cried, "ah, stay! Turn, damsels! hist! one word I have to say. Sweet Indian, I would see thee once again. It is a thing I dote on: so I'd fain, 920 Peona, ye should hand in hand repair Into those holy groves, that silent are Behind great Dian's temple. I'll be yon, At vesper's earliest twinkle--they are gone-- But once, once, once again--" At this he press'd His hands against his face, and then did rest His head upon a mossy hillock green, And so remain'd as he a corpse had been All the long day; save when he scantly lifted His eyes abroad, to see how shadows shifted 930 With the slow move of time,--sluggish and weary Until the poplar tops, in journey dreary, Had reach'd the river's brim. Then up he rose, And, slowly as that very river flows, Walk'd towards the temple grove with this lament: "Why such a golden eve? The breeze is sent Careful and soft, that not a leaf may fall Before the serene father of them all Bows down his summer head below the west. Now am I of breath, speech, and speed possest, 940 But at the setting I must bid adieu To her for the last time. Night will strew On the damp grass myriads of lingering leaves, And with them shall I die; nor much it grieves To die, when summer dies on the cold sward. Why, I have been a butterfly, a lord Of flowers, garlands, love-knots, silly posies, Groves, meadows, melodies, and arbour roses; My kingdom's at its death, and just it is That I should die with it: so in all this 950 We miscal grief, bale, sorrow, heartbreak, woe, What is there to plain of? By Titan's foe I am but rightly serv'd." So saying, he Tripp'd lightly on, in sort of deathful glee; Laughing at the clear stream and setting sun, As though they jests had been: nor had he done His laugh at nature's holy countenance, Until that grove appear'd, as if perchance, And then his tongue with sober seemlihed