Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE NEW ENDYMION, by EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE NEW ENDYMION, by             Poem Explanation         Poet's Biography
First Line: Behind the ghostly poplar-trees
Last Line: Bend o'er me on my fatal day!
Subject(s): Ships & Shipping


BEHIND the ghostly poplar-trees
The moon rose high when Celia died;
To win the flickering midnight breeze
I'd thrown the curtains both aside,
And this was how I came to see,
In my most tearless agony,
The red moon in the poplar-tree.

The scent of lilies, sickly sweet,
Just floated through the shining air,
And the hot perfume of the wheat
Hung like a vapour everywhere;
The anguish of the summer night,
Close, breathless, sultry, still and bright,
Seemed without hope and infinite.

But most the round orb of the moon,
That one by one the branches kissed,
Drawn out of her flushed waking swoon,
And changed to gold above the mist,
Seemed like a rancorous enemy,
Who climbed by stairs into the sky
Better to see my darling die.

And I remembered, hushed at heart,
Without a tear, though she was dead, --
As if my future had no part
In that cold past upon the bed, --
I thought how much the moon had seen
Of happy days that lay between
The sweet may-be and sad has-been.

Quivering to feel how, every time
I forged another link of love,
The mystic moon had seemed to climb,
And watch my lips, and hang above;
I shuddered, and my thoughts I cast,
While all my veins were beating fast,
Across my memories of the past.

I thought of one clear tropic night,
When, like a bird, through Indian seas,
Our ship unfolded wings of light,
And lost the land by soft degrees:
She paced the deck; I heard the stir
Of robes, her beauty's minister,
And at the last I spoke to her.

But while our budding fortunes crossed,
Amid her courteous flights of speech,
My careless vision slowly lost
The range of palm-trees on the beach,
Whereat another light began
Behind the isles of Andaman,
And up the golden moonlight ran.

I turned and saw her gentle face,
Those violet moon-shot eyes I saw,
And in that very hour and place
Bent like a vassal to her law;
But yet I dared not speak, and soon
She rose and suddenly had gone,
And left me to the florid moon.

I thought me of a winter street,
And how the first time, on my arm,
I felt her gentle pulses beat
As in a virgin vague alarm;
We let the rest pass on before,
And talking lingered, more and more
Hid in the city's kindly roar.

The great crowd caught us in its net,
And pressed us closer to each other;
We spoke of all since last we met,
And laughed like sister and like brother;
I all the while, with fixed intent,
Towards some more serious silence bent
To say a certain thing I meant.

In vain, -- till out of the blue night,
Behind the vast cathedral spire,
There swam into our sudden sight
A globe of honey-coloured fire,
And in the wonder of the view
She hushed her talking, and I knew
How kind her heart was and how true.

I thought, too, of the magic hour
When in one sacred chamber bound,
She loosed her wreath of orange-flower,
And dropped her wealth of hair uncrowned,
And I, with tenderest fingers laced
About the slimness of her waist,
Her cool and cream-white throat embraced.

And through this window-pane we glanced
And saw the silvery soft May-moon, --
Like some young maenad that hath danced
Till her bright head is in a swoon, --
Lean up against the poplar-tree,
And in the wild wind we could see
The leaves fold round her amorously.

They folded round as sisters might
Around a maiden sick to death,
Whom some perfidious churl and light
Had cheated with delusive breath:
The moon's white face that golden hour
Had something of the tints that lour
About the aconite in flower.

Yet that last night when Celia died
The moon's face had a stranger air,
A mien of victory, like a bride,
Enchanted, resolute and fair:
Through all my sorrow, all my pain,
I gazed upon the orb again,
Till my pent anguish gushed in rain;

And then upon her face I fell,
My sweet, lost Celia's, and my arms
Clasped round once more the miracle
Of her divine and tender charms;
The room grew dark, I know not why, --
I gazed and saw that, suddenly,
The moon was ashen in the sky.

Then I arose and left the dead,
And wandered up into our wood,
Till briar and honeysuckle shed
A subtle odour where I stood:
And there, beneath the boughs that lie
Thin-leaved against the stars on high,
The moon swam down the liquid sky.

And since that night of pain and love
I have not felt as others feel,
An alien in their courts I move,
And from their noisy world I steal;
The common ways of life I shun,
And quit my comrades every one,
And live sequestered from the sun.

But when the crescent moon begins
To fill her slender bow with fire,
A dream upon my fancy wins,
I languish with a fond desire;
I stride along the mountain-tops,
But when behind their range she drops,
My heart within me leaps and stops.

But every month one night I lie
Upon the wild back of the hills,
And watch the hollow of the sky
Until the crystal dew distils;
And when the perfect moon appears
A golden paragon of spheres,
I rise a god among my peers.

Twelve times within the weary year
That marvellous hour of joy returns,
And till its rapture reappear
My pulse is like a flame that burns;
I have no wonder, now, nor care
For any woman's hands or hair,
For any face, however fair.

Ah! what am I that she should bend
Her glorious godship down to me?
My mortal weakness cannot lend
Fresh light to her vast deity!
I know not! only this I know --
She loves me, she has willed it so,
And blindly in her light I go.

Sweet, make me as a mountain pool
With thy soft radiance mirrored o'er,
Or like the moon-fern, gray and cool,
That hides thy virtue in its core;
I must grow old and pass away;
Thou art immortal; love, I pray,
Bend o'er me on my fatal day!





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