and so forth. And then, having in his mind's eye, as I should guess, some of the mythological prints from Hunt's portfolios, he asks what moods or phases of nature first inspired the poets of old with the fables of Cupid and Psyche and of Pan and Syrinx, of Narcissus and Echo, and most beautiful of all, that of Cynthia and Endymion,--and for the remaining fifty lines of the poem moonlight and the Endymion story take full possession. The lines imagining the occasion of the myth's invention are lovely:-- 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 infant's 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. Then, treating the bridal night for the moment not as a myth but as a thing that actually happened, he recounts, in a strain of purely human tenderness which owes something to his hospital experience and which he was hardly afterwards to surpass, the sweet and beneficent influences diffused on that night about the world:-- The breezes were ethereal and pure, And crept through half-closed lattices to cure The languid sick; it cool'd their fever'd sleep, And soothed them into slumbers full and deep. Soon they awoke clear eyed, nor burnt with thirsting, Nor with hot fingers, nor with temples bursting: And springing up, they met the wondering sight Of their dear friends, nigh foolish with delight; Who feel their arms and breasts, and kiss and stare, And on their placid foreheads part the hair. Young men and maidens at each other gaz'd With hands held back, and motionless, amaz'd To see the brightness in each other's eyes. Then, closing, he asks himself the momentous question, 'Was there a poet born?' which he intended that his next year's work should answer.