Page:Keats - Poetical Works, DeWolfe, 1884.djvu/77

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With fingers cool as aspen leaves. Sweet love!
I was as vague as solitary dove,
Nor knew that nests were built. Now a soft kiss—
Ay, by that kiss, I vow an endless bliss,
An immortality of passion's thine
Ere long I will exalt thee to the shine
Of heaven ambrosial; and we will shade
Ourselves whole summers by a river glade;
And I will tell the stories of the sky,
And breathe thee whispers of its minstrelsy
My happy love will overwing all bounds!
O let me melt into thee! let the sounds
Of our close voices marry at their birth;
Let us entwine hoveringly! O dearth
Of human words! roughness of mortal speech!
Lispings empyrean will I sometimes teach
Thine honey'd tongue—lute-breathings which I gasp
To have thee understand, now while I clasp
Thee thus, and weep for fondness—I am pain'd,
Endymion: woe! woe! is grief contain'd
In the very deeps of pleasure, my sole life?"—
Hereat, with many sobs, her gentle strife
Melted into a langor. He return'd
Entranced vows and tears.
 
Ye who have yearn'd
With too much passion, will here stay and pity,
For the mere sake of truth; as 'tis a ditty
Not of these days, but long ago 'twas told
By a cavern wind unto a forest old;
And then the forest told it in a dream
To a sleeping lake, whose cool and level gleam