∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
4. Endymion (1848)
The chief of the “new and. more ambitious efforts” to which Hirst was encouraged by the success of his first collection of poems was the completion of a narrative poem of four cantos dealing with the story of Endymion and Diana. This was indeed an ambitious effort, especially since Keats had written a longer poem on the same subject and with the same title.
The metre of this poem is quite unusual, and was no doubt taken, as Longfellow suggested, from a translation by Bryant, called “Mary Magdalen” (from the Spanish of Bartoleme Leonardo de Argensola), It is only four stanzas in length, and was first published in the United Stares Review in October, 1826.
In July, 1844, there was published in the Southern Literary Messenger a poem of fifty-seven stanzas by Hirst, entitled “Endymion”. These stanzas, with one additional stanza, some omissions, and some few changes in wording, became fie first canto of the completed poem.
N. P. Willis wrote an important criticism of this, in the Weekly New Mirror for Saturday, July 27, 1844, as follows:(37)
“The last number of the Southern Literary Messenger contains two poems of uncommon merit for the drift of a periodical. One is by Mr. Gilmore Simms, (whose much-worked [page 85:] mine has now and then a very golden streak of poetry,) and the other is by H. B. Hirst, — a poem of fifty-seven stanzas on the subject of ENDYMION. This latter is after Keats. It is very highly studied, very carefully finished, and very airily and spiritually conceived. Its faults are its conceits, which are not always defensible — for instance the one in italics in the following beautiful description of Diana as she descended to Endymion: —
A crescent on her brow — a brow whose brightness
Darkened the crescent; and a neck and breast
On which young Love might rest
Breathless with passion; and an arm whose whiteness
Shadowed the lily's snow; and a lip the bee
Might dream in, and a knee
Round as a period; while her white feet glancing
Between her sandals shed a twilight light
Athwart the purple night.
Cycling her waist a zone, whose gems were dancing
With rainbow rays, pressed with a perfect grace,
Her bosom's ivory space.
“Now we know as well as anybody what the ‘round of a period is, and we have seen here and there a goddess's knee, and we declare there is no manner or shape of likeness that justifies the comparison! With the exception of two or three of these lapses away from nature, however, it is a beautiful poem — this ‘Endymion’ — and will read well in a volume. By the way, let us wonder whether the sweet poetess by the same name is a sister of Mr. Hirst.”
We shall note that Hirst changed the lines which Willis criticized. ‘But the short sentence, “This latter is after Keats”, really disturbed Hirst, and he felt it necessary to make an extended defense in his preface to the book containing [page 86:] the complete poem, which appeared in 1840. The entire preface is of importance to this criticism, so we quote it here:
“In offering to the public the following poem, now first completed, the first canto having been already published in the ‘Southern Literary Messenger,’ July 1844, it is right that I should premise a few words of explanation, and, perhaps, defence.
“My friend, N. P. Willis, in the ‘Weekly New Mirror’, July 27th, 1044, and afterward, in his ‘Ephemera’, while reviewing the first canto in terms of very high, and it may be, undeserved compliment, described it as being written ‘after Keats’. I have had the misfortune — presumption. it will probably be termed by some — to choose a subject upon which this eminent poet has produced a more extended and elaborate article; but, however great may be the respect due to the opinion of Mr. Willis, I cannot consent to rest under a charge undoubtedly originating in a cursory examination. and tee associations awakened by identity of subject.
“Before the publication of the first canto, I had never met with the Endymion of Keats, and purposely avoided the perusal of that beautiful poem until the completion of my own, with the express design of escaping the danger of unintended plagiarism.
“This may appear singular; but it is easily explained. Until the age of twenty-three years, I entertained a holy horror of poetry — an almost ludicrous result of an exceedingly prosaic existence; — and, invariably, during the few and distant hours which sterner and less palatable duties [page 87:] permitted me to spend in study, I ‘skipped the page’ that bore the burden of a verse, through utter parsimony of my most valuable treasure — time. Beyond the classic fathers of the art, speaking in their original tongues, the favorites of the Muses were strangers to me; and if the poetical temperament found any chance for proper development, it was displayed exclusively in a passionate fondness for the study of natural history and the practice of the pencil. The studies of my manhood have been confined to my profession, and it would be safe to say that I have written — not published — more English rhyme than I have read.
“If, then, resemblances should be detected between the contents of these cantos and any portion of the Endymion of Keats, they are the inevitable. consequences of the universal familiarity of that beautiful classical legend, which, as the common property of all, has been seized upon as a theme by two different writers, born of the same Anglo-Saxon race. If such resemblances exist, they are as’foreign to the intention as they are to the knowledge or perception of their author.
“Endymion was written as a simple tale, founded upon an exquisitely beautiful classical legend — a picture of scenery and passion, without allegorical meaning and’ divested, of all intentional moral. It is cast forth upon the waters of a great stream of literature, to float or disappear, as its intrinsic qualities may determine. Time and the world will vest its value, and more than its just desert, as thus decided, will never be claimed for it by one from whom it has beguiled the weariness of a few heavy hours.” [page 88:]
Hirst we have found, to be often au inaccurate man, arid he was called “the most accomplished liar of his day.(38) Therefore, in spite of his staunch defense of himself we are left with the question: Had Hirst read Keats's “Endymion” before he wrote his own? It is impossible to give an unqualified and conclusive answer in either negative or affirmative. We shall suspend further discussion of it until after the careful consideration of the text of Hirst's first canto.
In the following pages the first canto of Endymion is quoted from the book, with footnotes to each stanza giving:
1) variant versions in the Southern Literary Messenger:
2) lines from Keats's “Endymion” which may have been imitated;
3) lines from other poems by Keats, and lines from Shelley, Poe, or other poets, which seem to have been imitated, and
4) comments by the writer of this essay. [page 89:]
ENDYMION
CANTO I.
I.
Through a deep dell with mossy hemlocks girded —
A dell by many a sylvan Dryad prest, —
Which Latmos’ lofty crest
Flung half in shadow — where the red deer herded —
While mellow murmurs shook the forests grey —
Endymion took his way.
I. The description of Latmos in Keats's poem begins with line 63, as follows:
“Upon the sides of Latmos was outspread
A mighty forest; for the moist earth fed
So plenteously all weed-hidden roots
Into o’er-hanging boughs, and precious fruits,
And it had gloomy-shades, sequestered deep,
Where no man went;”
Line 1. The opening line of Keats's “Hyperion” comes to mind:
“Deep in the shady sadness of a vale”.
“hemlocks”. Cf. Keats's Endymion”, I, lines 240 and 241: —
“In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds
The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth;”
4. “where the red deer herded”. Cf. Keats's “Endymion”, I, 1. 78:
“Where fed the herds of Pan”.
Cf. also Hirst's sonnet to Keats, 1, 10:
“In ancient cycles fed the flocks of Pan”.
5. “forests grey”. Cf. Poe's “Dream-Land”, 1. 27:
“By the grey woods, — by the swamp”.
Longfellow knew this poem before he wrote his “Evangelin”,and admired it. It is barely possible that Hirst's “mossy hemlocks” and “mellow murmurs” of “the forest grey” suggested Longfellow's:
“The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss,” etc.
II
Like clustering sun-light fell his yellow tresses,
With purple fillet, scarce, confining, hound,
Winding their flow around
A snowy throat that thrilled to their caresses,
And trembling on a breast as lucid white
As sea-foam in the night.
1. Cf. Tennyson's “Oenone”, lines 56 and 59:
“but his sunny hair
Cluster’d about his temples like a God's;”
1 and 3 and 4. Cf. with Keats's:
“His very hair, his golden tresses famed
Kept undulation round his eager neck.” —
from “Hyperion”, III, 131 and 132.
4. In S.L.M, this line begins: “A swan-like throat”.
5. The early version (1833) of Tennyson's”Oenone” had the lines:
“below her lucid neck
Shone ivorylike”.
This occurs in the description of Aphrodite, whom he also pictures as binding up her hair with “a purple band”.
6. Lines 60 and 61 in the 1842 version of Tennyson's “Oenone” are:
“And his cheek brightened as the foam-bow brightens
When the wind blows the foam”.
III
His fluted tunic swelling, yielding, floated.,
Moulded to every motion of his form,
And with the contact warm,
Round charms on which the Satyrs might have gloated
Had he been buskined nymph; but being man,
They loved him like to Pan.
III. Compare with Keats's “Lamia”, lines 1 to 14, for references to nymphs and Satyrs.
IV
His girdle held his pipes — those pipes that clearly
Through Carian meadows mocked the nightingale
When Hesper lit the vale:
And now the youth was faint, though stepping cheerly,
Supported by his shepherd's crook, he strode
Toward his remote abode —
1. Keats's description of his Endymion says (I, 172-173):
“beneath his breast, half bare
Was hung a silver bugle”.
Hirst evidently decided to have a different type of musical instrument instead. Keats's hero rides in “a fair wrought car” and has “a boar-spear keen”. In Hirst's poem Endymion walks”supported by a shepherd's crook”.
6. In S.L.M. this line reads:
“Toward his far abode”
which makes “toward” two syllables.
V
Mount Latmos lay before him. Gently gleaming,
A roseate halo from the twilight dim
Hung round his crown. To him
The rough ascent was light; for, far off, beaming
Orion rose — and Sirius, like a shield,
Shone on the asure field.
1. S.L.M. had “Faintly gleaming.” [page 92:]
3. S.L.M. has: “Hung round, its crown. To him”
5. “Orion”. Mentioned by Keats in his “Endymion”, II, 198.
VI
Yet he was faint — faint with fatigue and drooping:
Through the long day unwearied he had kept
Watch, while his cattle slept;
And now the sun was like a falcon stopping
Down the red west, and Night from out her cave
Walked, Christ-like, o’er the wave.
3. “cattle”. Endymion, according to the previous stanza, Swas a shepherd, and in stanza XIV Hirst speaks of his “flock”. “Cattle” must have been used here Because of its two syllables.
4. “like a falcon stooping”. In “Lamia” (I, 59 and 60), Keats writes:
“while Hermes on his pinions lay
Like a stoop’d falcon ere he takes his prey.”
5 and 6. Undoubtedly from Shelley's “To the Night”:
“Swiftly walk over the western wave,
Spirit of Night
Out of the misty eastern cave”
6. “Christ-like”. (In S.L.M. “Christ-like!”) This is another example of Hirst's fondness for coining adjectives by hyphenizing names with “like”. Elsewhere in his writings there occur: “Eve-like”, “Titan-like”, “Prometheus-like”, and “Sappho-like”.
VII
And from the south — the yellow south, all glowing
With blandest beauty, came a gentle breeze,
Murmuring o’er sleeping seas,
Which, bearing dewy damps and lightly flowing [page 93:]
Athwart his brow, cooled his hot brain and stole
Like nectar to his soul.
In the S. L. M. the first four lines of this stanza read:
“And from the South — the yellow South all glowing
With blandest beauty, came a gentle wind,
Breathed from the lips of Ind,
Which, like an unseen vapor, lightly flowing”
3. Cf. Shelley's “With a Guitar, to Jane”, line 72:
“The murmuring of summer seas”
5. and 6. Cf. Keats's”Endymion”, I, 566 and 567:
“Moreover, through the dancing poppies stole
A breeze, most softly lulling to my soul.
VIII
Endymion blessed the wind; his bosom swelling
As his parched lips drank in the luscious draught;
His eyes, even while he quaffed,
Brightening; his stagnant blood again upwelling
From his warm heart; and freshened, as with sleep,
He trod the rocky steep.
1. S. L. M.: “Endymion blessed the breeze! his bosom swelling
3. S. L. M.: “His eyes, even as he quaffed.”
4. 5 and 6: Cf. Keats's “Endymion”, II, 66 and 67:
“From languor's sullen bands
His limbs are loos’d, and eager, on he hies”.
IX
At last he gained the top, and crown’d with splendour,
The moon, arising from the Latmian sea, [page 94:]
Stepp’d o’er the heavenly lea,
Flinging her misty glances, meek and tender
As a young virgin's, o’er his marble brow
That glisten’d with their glow.
3. S.L.M.: “Steps o’er the heavenly lea” — a careless use of the present tense.
4. “Flinging” is a poor choice of word here, as its connotation is inconsistent with “meek and tender”.
X
Beside him gush’d a spring that in a hollow
Had made a crystal lake, by which he stood
To cool his heated blood —
His blood yet fever’d, for the fierce Apollo
Throughout the long, the hot, the tropic day
Embraced him with his ray.
1 and 2. Cf. with Keats's “Endymion”, II, 133 and 134:
“The dashing fount pour’d on, and where its pool
Lay, half asleep, in grass and rushes cool”
5. The series of adjectives in this line is not at all necessary or effective.
6. In S.L.M.; “Had kissed him with his ray”.
XI
Beside the lake whose waves were glassily gleaming,
A willow stood in Dian's rising rays,
And from the woodland ways
Its feather’d, lance-like leaves were gently streaming [page 95:]
Along the water, with their lucent tips
Kissing its silver lips.
In the S.L.M. the first line is:
“Beside the water, like a mirror gleaming,”
and the fifth line is:
“Along the lakelet's face, their emerald tips”.
“Lakelet” is an atrocious word, and Hirst did well to change it.
1. Poe does better when he speaks, in “The City in the Sea” (1. 57), of a stretch of water as a “wilderness of glass”
4. Here the two epithets “feather’d” and “lance- like” are scarcely consistent. Cf. Hirst's sonnet to Keats. 1.5:
“Ruffled their feathered leaves”.
5 and 6. (S.L.M. version). Cf. with Keats's:
“It seem’d an ‘emerald, in the silver sheen
Of the bright waters;” —
in his “Imitation of Spenser”, lines 25 and 26.
The rhyme of “lips” with “tips” is used in Keats's “Endymion” in the following passage which Immediately precedes a description of a willow (I, 444-8): —
“Peona's busy hand against his lips,
And still, a sleeping, held her finger-tips
In tender pressure. And as a willow keeps
A patient watch over the stream that creeps
Windingly by it,” etc.
XII
And still the moon arose, serenely hovering,
Dove-like, above the horizon. Like a queen
She walked in light between
The stars — her lovely handmaids — softly- covering
Valley and wold, and mountain-side and plain,
With streams of lucid rain. [page 96:]
The S.L.M. version is:
And still the moon arose, her lustre hovering,
Dove-like, above t’horizon. Like a queen
She walked in light between
The stars — her lovely hand-maids — gently covering
The vale, the world, the mountain and the plain
With glory showered like rain.
1 and 2. This description of the moon as a hovering bird is unusual. Cf. the following lines about the moon from Shelley's “Lines Written in the Bay of Leruci”: —
“And like an albatross asleep,
Balanced on her wings of light,
Hovered in the purple night.”
“Dove-like”. In Keats’ s”Endymion” (II, 16? and r/u ) the moon is once addressed as —
“O meekest dove
Of heaven.’”
Keats uses “dove-like” twice in his “Endymion”, (II, 670 and IV, 65), but neither refers to the moon.
2. “Like a queen”. This is a more usual comparison. Cf. Keats's “Endymion”, II, 175: — “sweet queen”. Keats calls Cynthia “queen of light” in IV, 828, and uses the word in many other passages about the moon.
3 and 4. These lines call to mind the opening lines of a well-known lyric by Byron: —
“She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies,”
4. Cf. Keats's:
“As if the ministring stars kept not apart;”
(“Endymion”, III, 50)
“And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays1;”
(“Ode to a Nightingale, iv, 5,6)
6. Cf. Shelley's:
“The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflowed.”
(“To a Skylark”, vi, 5)
XIII
Endymion watched her rise, his bosom burning
With princely thoughts; for though a shepherd's son
He knew that fame is won
By high aspirings; and a lofty yearning,
From the bright blossoming of his boyish days,
Made his deeds those of fraise.
2. In S.L.M. there is a footnote on this line which reads: “Keats mates him a Prince, when he was a peasant”. If Hirst himself made this note, he; must have read Keats's poem. The note does not appear In the book.
In Book I (1. 219) of Keats's poem the priest speaks of “Endymion our lord”, but in Book II (1. 43) Keats himself addresses Endytiiion as “Brain-sick shepherd prince”.
What authority Hirst had for saying “he wao a peasant” is doubtful. The account in Pausanias's Description of Greece. (see page 127 of this criticism), from which directly or indirectly Hirst probably got the idea of Chromia, says that Endymion was the son of a king, Aethlius.
3. In S.L.M.: “He felt that Fame is won”.
5. In S.L.M.: “From the green verdure of his boyish days” Hirst did well to eliminate the tautology of “green verdure”. Cf. Keats's: “the springing verdure of his heart”, in “Endymion”, III, 1. 180.
6. Cf. this and the next stanza with Keats's “Endymion”, II, 094 and
“Then the spur
Of the old bards to mighty deeds”
XIV
Like hers, his track was tranquil, he had gather’d
By slow degrees the glorious, golden lore,
Hallowing his native snore;
And when at silent eve his flock was tether’d,
He read the stars, and drank, as from a stream,
Great knowledge from then gleam.
2. Cf. Poe's “The Haunted Palace”, line 9:
“Banners yellow, glorious, golden”
4. In S.L.M.: “And when at dewy even his flock”, etc.
“flock”. See note on stanza VI, line 3.
“tether’d”. This seems to us a poor rhyme. Hirat may have said “gether’d”.
XV
And so he grew a dreamer — one who, punting
For shadowy objects, languish’d like a bird
That, striving to be heard
Above its fellows, fails, the struggle haunting
Its memory ever, for ever the strife pursuing
To its own dark undoing.
This stanza is not in S.L.M.
1. “Panting” is a word used remarkably often by Keats, but is not used in just this sense.
4. “Haunting”. Scarcely a good rhyme today. But Hirst probably said “hanting”.
XVI
And still the moon arose, and now the water
Gleamed like a golden galaxy, star on star;
And down, deep down, afar
In the lazulian lake, Latona's daughter
Imaged, reclined, breathing forth light, that rose
Like mist at evening close.
4. “lazulian” . (Capitalized, in S.L.M.) A very unusual word, which is not given in most dictionaries’. It is not used by Keats or Shelley, nor have we found it in Poe's poems. Some dictionaries give an adjective “lazuline”, also from “lapis lazuli”.
Note the alliteration in lines 2, 3, and 4.
XVII
Endymion yet was heated: sudden turning
He loosed the clusters of his hyacinth hair,
And shook them on the air;
Laid down his pipes; unbound his girdle, burning
The while with August heat; his tunic now
He drew above his brow.
2. “hyacinth hair”. Directly from Poe's first poem “To Helen”, line 6.
XVIII
There, in the moon-light radiantly gleaming,
Lovely as morn he rose; the swelling veins
Seeming like purple stains
Along his limbs, which, like a star's, were streaming
Serenest light, as lustrously he stood
Reflected in the flood.
2. In S.L.M.: “Lovely as morn he stood;” etc.
2 and 3. Cf. Keats's “Endymion”, I, 623; “more bluely vein’d.”
4. In S.L.M.: “Along his limbs, which, like a God's were streaming”. The first simile seems preferable, and we wonder why Hirst changed it. Should one speak of the “limbs” of a star? [page 100:]
5 and 6. In S.L.M.;
“Serenest light, for Dian's glances fell
Around him like a spell”.
The change here evidently necessitated the change from “stood” to “rose” in line 2.
5. “Serenest’”. Cf. Shelley's “Lines Written in the Bay of Leruci”, line 34:
“O’er some serenest element”.
XIX
And now, her purple zenith reaching, brighter
Than ever before, reclined the Queen of Night,
Enchanted with the sight
Of one whose pure and perfect form was whiter
Than Indian pearl, her bosom's frozen snow
Melting in passion's glow.
In S.L.M. this stanza reads:
And now, her purple zenith reaching, brighter —
Lovelier than ever shone the Queen of Night,
Where, trembling at the sight
Of one whose perfect limbs were rosier, whiter
Than Indian pearl, or even her bosom's snow,
She paused and gazed below.
1. “purple”. A very common word in this poem. See line 3 of stanza XVIII above. It is also frequently used by Keats, Poe, and Shelley.
2. Cf. notes on stanza XII.
5. Cf. Tennyson's “Oenone”, line 140: “her snow-cold breast”.
6. The revision has put a fairly strong line in place of a very weak one.
XX
Slowly Endymion bent, the light Elysian
Flooding in his figure, Kneeling on one knee, [page 101:]
He loosed his sandals, lea
And lake and woodland glittering on his vision —
A fairy landscape, bright a£d beautiful,
With Venus at her full.
1. “light Elysian”. Keats uses “Elysian” a number of times in his “Endymion”. Shelley also uses the word frequently.
3. In S.L.M.: “A fairy land, all bright and beautiful”. The revised line is less musical.
Hirst accused Poe of imitating tkhin stanza. In a criticism of Hirst, Poe quotes the accusation as follows (the sentence in parenthesis is Poe's):
“We have spoken of the mystical appearance of Astarte as a fine touch of Art. This is borrowed, and from the first canto of Hirst's ‘Endymion’ — (the reader will observe that the anonymous critic has no personal acquaintance whatever with Mr, Hirst, but takes care to call him ‘Hirst’ simply, just as we say ‘Homer’.) — from Hirst's ‘Endymion’, published years ago in ‘The Southern’ Literary Messenger’.”
(Then the S.L.M. version of this stanza is quoted)
“Astarte is axxother name for Venus; and when we remember that Diana is about to descend to Endymion — that the scene which is about to follow is one of love — and that Hirst, by introducing it as he does, shadows out his story exactly as Mr. Poe does his Astarte — the plagiarism of idea becomes evident.
Poe then replies as follows:
“Now I really feel ashamed to say that, as yet, I have not perused’ ‘Endymion’ — for Mr, Hirst will retort at once — ‘That is no fault of mine — you should have read it — I gave you a copy — and you had no business to fall asleep when I did you the honor of reading it to you.’ Without a word of excuse, therefore, I will merely copy the passage in ‘Ulalume’ which the author of ‘Endymion’ says I purloined from the line quoted above:
And now, as the night was senescent
And star-dials pointed to morn —
As the star-dials hinted of morn —
At the end of my path a liquescent
And nebulous lustre was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
Arose with a duplicate horn —
Astarte's bediamonded crescent,
Distinct with its duplicate horn. [page 102:]
“Now, I may be permitted to regret — really to regret — that I can find no resemblance between the two passages in question; for malo cum Platone errare, &c., and to be a good imitator of Henry B. Hirst is quite honor enough for me.”
See Campbell's edition of Poe's poems, p. 274, for note on this accusation. And see the second paragraph of Poe's letter to Hirst (on page 24 of this essay) for reference to Poe's having fallen asleep while Hirst read “Endymion” to him.
XXI
His milky feet gleaming in emerald grasses;
The moon-beams trembling on his whiter neck;
His breast without a speck;
While the dense woods around, the mossy masses
Of rudest rock, the bronzed and Titan trees
Looking on Latmian leas,
1. In S.L.M.: “His pearly feet”, etc. Cf. with Keats's “Endymion”, I, 513.
“Her naked limbs among the alders green”.
3. “dense”. S.L.M. has “dim” instead. See S.L.M. version of the first line of the. following stanza.
“mossy masses”. The alliteration is not good here description of “rudest rock”.
4. Hirst's pet word “Titan” again.
XXII
Assumed from him an aspect soft and holy
For, like a naked God, the shepherd youth
Stood in his simple truth.
At last, with gentle steps retiring slowly,
He paused beside a rude, rough laurel brake
A bow-shot from the lake —
1, 2, and 3. in S.L.M.:
“Took from his light a darkness dim and holy,
For, like a. marbled God, the shepherd youth
Stood in his simple ruth!”
“ruth” may have been a typographical error. It makes very little sense here. The first line in this version is not very sensible either.
XXIII
White-footed, then he passed the crimson clover
Like a swift meteor gleaming on the night
Streaming in silver light
His arms uplifted and his hands flung over
His noble head; a single spring he gave,
Then flashed beneath the wave
In our opinions, this stanza with its excellent movement is one of the very best in the whole poem.
XXIV
Down, as he sandk, a flood of yellow glory
Shot from the moon, as if the moon had dropped
And on the mountain stopped
And soon the sphere itself, grown grey and hoary,
Its essence gone, slid slowly ‘neath a cloud
That wrapped it like a shroud.
1 and 2 — Cf. Keats's “Endymion”, I, 350:
“There shot a golden splendour far and wide”
and Poe's “Al Aaraaf”, II, 24:
“And rays from God shot dawn that meteor chain” [page 104:]
4. “Its essence gone”. The S.L.M. version has instead:
“As though with age”, apparently to complete the idea of the trite “grey and hoary” which ends the previous line. The use of the. word “age” in connection with the moon in this poem was very unhappy, and Hirst did well to change it. It is only another proof of the carelessness — of his writing that he used it at all.
4 and 5. Possibly from Poe's:
“There pass'd, as a shroud,
A fleecy cloud,”
in his “Evening Star”, lines 12 and 13, though Dr. Mabbott doubts that Hirst could have seen that poem of Poe's. It is just possible that Poe might have recited it to him.
XXV
Then, like a ghost of some unwedded maiden,
On whose pale lips life seemed to strive with death,
Hushing, as ‘t were, her breath,
A glorious figure, wreathed with vapor laden
With delicate odors, stood with yearning eyes,
Waiting Endymion's rise;
1. This is one of the lines which “whispers of familiar readings”, but we have been unable to find the particular reading in this case.
3. “as ‘t were”. Meaningless. >
6. S.L.M. has instead.: “To see Endymion rise.”
XXVI
A crescent on her brow — a brow, whose brightness
Darkened the crescent — and a neck and breast
On which young Love might rest
Breathless with passion; and an arm whose whiteness [page 105:]
Shadowed the lily's snow; a lip the bee
Would swoon on; and a knee
1. “crescent”. A common attribute of Diana. See Keats's “Endymion”, II, 309, and IV, 430.
1 and 2. Cf. Keats’d-
“Her pearl round ears, white neck, and orbed brow;”
(in his “Endymion”, I, 616).
2., 3 and 4: Perhaps suggested by Marlowe's lines (of Cupid) in his description of Hero infche first sestiad of “Hero and Leander”:
“so like was one the other,
As he imagined Hero was his mother;
And oftentimes into her bosom flew,
About her naked neck his bare arms threw,
And laid his childish head upon her breast,
And, with still panting rock, there took his rest.”
6. This is the only line of the stanza which varies in S.L.M. It is:
“Might dream in, and a knee”
XXVII
Delicately rounded; while her white feet — glancing
Within her sandals, shed a twilight light
Athwart the purple night,
Cycling her form, a zone whose gems were dancing
With rainbow rays, with perfect love embraced
The white round of her waist.
S.L.M. version of this stanza reads: —
“Round as a period; while her white feet glancing
Between her sandals-, shed a twilight light
Athwart the purple night,
Cycling her waist, a zone whose gems were dancing
With rainbow rays, pressed with a perfect grace
Her bosom's ivory space.” [page 106:]
This is the stanza which Willis criticized (see page 83 of this essay), and it is to be noted that Hirst profited by the criticism.
1 and 2. Cf. the following descriptions of feet in Keats's “Endymion”:
“Ah! see her hovering feet, More bluely vein’d, more soft, more whitely sweet
Than those of sea-born Venus,” (I, 624-6 )
“Dost thou now lave thy feet and ankles white?”(II, 325).
“ankles pointing light” (II, 301).
2. “twilight light”. A very unhappy expression. Keats has “twilight eyes” in his “Endymion”, II, 193.
3. “purple night”. Cf. Shelley's “Lines ‘Written in the Bay of Leruci”, 1. 6:
“Hovered in the purple night”.
This passage has already been quoted in the note on lines 1 and 2 of stanza XII.
4, 5 and 6.. Cf. Poe's “Al Aaraaf”, II, 34:
“And zone that clung around her gentle waist”.
XXVIII
Endymion rose and on the water lying
Flung out his arms, sank, rose and sank again,
Pale Dian in her pain,
(For it was Dian's sell who watched him,) sighing,
While gazing on him, and her breath came short
And heavy from her heart.
1. “water”. S.L.M. has “lakelet” instead. See note on Stanza XI.
2. “Flung” . S.L.M. has “flang”. We hope it was a typographical error.
5. S.L.M.: “Gazing upon him, and his breath came short”
XXIX
She saw not Eros, who on rosy pinion
Hung in the willow's shadow — did not feel
His subtle, searching steel
Piercing her very soul, though his dominion
Her breast had grown, and what to her was heaven
If from Endymion riven?
1. Cf. Keats's “Endymion”, II, 386:
“Cupids a slumbering on their pinpons fair”
There are many other “pinions” in Keats's poems, but there are not any which happen to be “rosy”.
2. S,L.M. has:
“Hung ‘neath the willow's shadow — did not feel”
4 and 5. In S.L.M. these lines read:
“Threading her very soul; the youth's dominion
Circled her breast, and what to her was heaven”
“The youth's” is ambiguous. All of the revision here is good.
5 and 6. “heaven” and “riven”. This seems a poor rhyme; but Poe rhymes “given”, “striv’n”, and “forgiven” with “Heaven”.
XXX
Nothing, for love flowed in her, like a river,
Flooding the banks of wisdom; and her soul,
Losing its self-control,
Waved with a vague, uncertain, tremulous quiver;
And, like a lily in the storm, at last
She sank ‘neath passion's blast. [page 108:]
4. Cf. Poe's “Al Aaraaf”, II, 2j5y:
“But with a downward, tremulous motion”
5. “like a lily in the storm”. This simile whispers of Poe. But of also Keats's “Endymion”, I, 733 and 734:
“and then, that love douh scathe,
The gentle heart, as northern blasts do roses;”
6. S.L.M. has: “She bent to passion's blast”.
XXXI
She knelt; and thus to awful Jove complaining,
Poured her deep voice upon the night's still ear; —
“Farher, dread Father, hear!
Look down upon thy daughter; see her waning
And wasting as the night before the day —
Let not thy child decay!
2. “her deep voice”. Cf. stanza XXXIX, line 1.
3. Cf. Poe's “The Bells”, III, 4:
“In the startled ear of night”,
This poem was not begun until 1848.
6. “decay”. A very poor word here, evidently chosen for the rhyme.
XXXII
“Hear me, O! hear me, Thou who swayest the thunder!
I must possess Endymion, or I die.
O! hearken to my cry —
Hearken, or I shall perish! — Never was wonder
So great as he; white-breasted, like a God,
He treads the swarthy sod.”
1 . “Thou who swayest the thunder!” A very trite epithet for Jove.
5 and 6. Cf. with Tennyson's “Oenone”, lines 56 and 57:
“White-breasted like a star
Fronting the dawn he moved.”
6. S.L.M. has: “He treads the emerald sod”. This is at least more consistent with the “emerald grasses” of stanza XXI.
XXXIII
A star shot from the cope of heaven, weaving
Its golden way along the azure air, —
The answer to her prayer!
Then, rising from her knees, her bosom heaving,
Her lips adamp with dew, while through her frame
Discoursed a tingling flame,
1 and 2. A beautiful description. Cf. Keats's “Endymion”, I, 642:
“When falling starfc dart their artillery forth”
and Poe's “Al Aaraaf”, II, 24:
“And rays from God shot down that meteor chain”.
2. S.L.M. version of this line is:
“A myriad rubies through the azure air,”
XXXIV
She gazed again upon Endymion, bending
Above him from the willow's lowest limb —
Her radiant eyes as dim
As twilight, when the night is slowly blending
Shadow with shadow, with her heaving breast
Throbbing with sweet unrest.
1 and 2. Cf. Hirst's “The Statue Love”, lines 17 and 18:
“And physically lovely, bent
Above him — beauty's ornament”.
4 and 5. “When night is slowly blending
Shadow with shadow”
This is perfect, and we hope it is original with Hirst.
5. “her heaving breast”. Cf. Poe's “Al Aaraaf”, I, 64:
“Heaving her white breast to the balmy air”.
6. “sweet unrest”. Cf. Keats's last sonnet, line 12:
“Awake for ever in a sweet unrest”.
XXXV
Waving her hand, straightway, rose a fountain
Dropping pellucid pearl without a sound,
While from the grassy- ground,
Along the rill that filleted the mountain,
Around the lake, and in the waving bowers
Budded a myriad flowers.
The S.L.M. version varies greatly, and is as follows:
“She waved her hand, and straightway leaped a fountain
Showering dissolving pearls, and round the hill,
Beside the murmuring rill,
About the lake — the lawn that crowned the mountain,
From the cleft rocks and in waving bowers
Arose a myriad flowers.”
4. Cf. Poe's “Tamerlane”, lines 143 and 144:
“The dwindled hills! begirt with bowers
And shouting with a thousadd rills.”
6. “a myriad flowers”. Probably it was because of this expression here that Hirst in his revision removed “a myriad rubies” from the second line of stanza XXXIII.
Following this stanza, the S.L.M. has five stanzas, none of which are reprinted in the book, as follows: — [page 111:]
XXXV (S.L.M.)
First sprang a leaf, then stems and limbs succeeding
Each upon each around the grassy ways;
Then, bursting in a blaze,
Budded the ruby rose and amaranth bleeding;
While tressed hyacinths and violets blue,
Sparkled with crystal dew.
XXXVI (S.L.M.)
And there were lilies, white and crimson-spotted;
Tube-roses snowy-as a moon-lit cloud;
Blue-bells that tolled aloud,
With fragrant voices, music; poppies dotted
And flaked with fiery gold, and aconite
Alive with purple light.
XXXVII
And there were vines rose clustering o’er the bushes,
Circling the lawn with interwoven green,
Which, with a shining sheen
From blossoms roseate as Aurora's blushes,
Filled up the picture, forming from the spot
A kind of flowering grot.
XXXVIII (S.L.M.)
There was the vault above, the breathless azure,
Diapered addd dotted with its countless lights;
The lawin, a sight of sights!
Whose mossy carpets seemed a monarch's treasure
Glowing with blossoming fires; the sleeping lake;
The vined and laurelled brake;
XXXIX (S.L.M.)
All standing, like a crown upon the giant,
Titanic hill; the Goddess like a gleam
Of light in Poet's dream;
The swimming youth, whose beauty seemed defiant
Of Saturn's touch, floating like one asleep,
Along the rippling deep.
Why did Hirst omit these five stanzas in his book? They are the only description of definite flowers of varied kinds in his poetry. But Hirst had been accused, after the S.L.M. version of this canto had appeared, of having written the poem “after Keats”. He thereupon tried to repudiate that charge, and we believe that it was for that reason that Hirst did not print these stanzas in his book. As proof of this opinion we give the following notes on these stanzas: [page 112:]
XXXV. 4. “the ruby rose”. Roses are common enough in all poetry. Cf. Keats's “Endymion”, I, 696:
“the vermeil rose had blown
In frightful scarlet.”
See also his “Endymion”, lines II, 3.5; II, 405; III, 457and IV, 15u.
“amaranth”. An unusual flower. See Keats's “Endvmion” IV, 783.
7. “tresséd hyacinth”. This is reminiscent of Poe's “hyacinth hair”. But Keats also has hyacinths in his “Endymion”, and in his “Fancy”, 1. 31.
“violets blue”. Cf. Keats's “Endymion”, I, 667; and II, 427; and his “Epistle to George Felton Matthew”, line 49.
6. Cf. Keats's “Endymion”, I, 900:
“Dew-drops, and dewy buds, and leaves, and flowers”.
XXXVI. 1 . For “lilies” in Keats's “Endymion”, see II, 10i, 115, and 4ub. See also his “Fancy”, line 49.
3. “blue-bells”. Keats uses these flowers in his poem — I, 451; I, 631; and II, 365. See also Keats's “I Stood Tip-toe”, 43; and “Bards of Passion and of Mirth”, 13.
4. “poppies”. See Keats's “Endymion”,’ I, 535, 566, and 602, and 914; also IV, 766. See Keats's “Epistle to George Keats”, 178; “Sleep and Poetjry”, 14 and 348; and his “To Autumn”, II, 6.
5. “aconite”. We suspect that this flower was introduced solely for the sake of the rhyme.
6. “purple” again. Cf. Keats's “Epistle to George Keats” line 88:
“Crowned with flowers purple, white, and red”,
and his “Endymion”, II, 207.
XXXVII. 1, For a description of vines in Keats's “Endymion”, see Book II, lines 4u9 - 418, inclusive.
2. “the lawn”. This brings to mind the opening description in Keats's “Endymion”. See I, oz, and 108.
4. Quite clearly from line 22 of Keats's “Epistle to George Felton Matthew”:
“Or flush’d Aurora in the roseate dawning!” [page 113:]
6. “flowering grot”. “Grot” is another word which Keats uses frequently. See, in his “Endymion”, I, 943; II, 921; IV, 4; and in “La Belle Dame sahs Merci”, viii. l.
XXXVIII 3. “lawn” again. See note on XXXVII (S.L.M.) above line 2.
4. “mossy”. This is a common adjective in Keats. It is used, for example, in his “Endymion”, I, 937; and in II, 710: —
“The smoothest mossy bed and deepest”.
5. “the sleeping lake”. Of. Keats's “Endymion”, I, 633:
“To a sleeping lake, whose cool and level gleam”.
6. “brake”. See, in Keats's “Endymion”, I, 18; III, 493, and in his “Lamia”, I, 46; and “Sleep and Poetry”, 226.
(We now return to the version in the book)
XXXVI
The Shepherd sought the shore, Dian retreating
Deeper in shadow as he neared the strand.
He touched the mossy land
And stood erect, when, with a heavenly greeting,
The blossom-buds unclosed, and fragrance meet
For Gods rose at his feet.
3. S.L.M. has for this line:
“The flowers unclosed their buds, and fragrance meet”.
XXXVII
Around the mount it rose, — an odor fairer
Than ever mortal flowers had known before —
From the lake's lilied shore —
From the thick grass — diviner, richer, rarer
Than even Olympian light — its vapory chains [page 114:]
Fettering his throbbing veins.
3. “lilied”. In S.L.M. spelled “lillied”. Keats always has “lilly”.
XXXVIII
Endymion stood entranced, dreaming him dying,
Feeling that heaven was nigh; yet could not see
Dim Dian, for the tree
Shadowed her still; nor could he hear her sighing
For the low ripple of the rill that played
Adown the grassy glade.
The S.L.M. version of the first three lines varies, as follows:
“With bliss so sweet, ‘twas pain. He dreamed, him dying,
Feeling that a God was nigh; yet could not see
Bright Dian, for the tree”
XXXIX
Then, like the music of a pipe low uttered,
When the d±m day is drawigg to its close,
Floating around him flows
A cadence, gentle as though it were muttered
A mile or more away, — “Endymion, why —
Why hast thou sought mine eye?”
4. “muttered”. The connotation of this word makes it an unfortunate choice in this stanza.
Compare this stanza with Keats's description of music in his “Endymion”, II, 351-363.
XL
He turned amazed, and heard the fountain leaping,
And saw the flowers, but Dian saw he not,
For darkness veiled the spot;
While all the while the fragrant scent was steeping
His brain in luscious languor, leading him
Toward Lethe dark and dim.
1 and 2. In S.L.M. these lines are:
“He turned amazed and saw the fountain leaping,
The myriad flowers, but Dian saw he not”
This early version of the first line is better, because in stanza XXXV, Hirst says that this fountain was “dropping pellucid pearl without a sound”.
4. “While all the while”. This is careless, and very weak.
5. “luscious languor”. Both of these words are Keatsian.
XLI
Then sheeted shadows of old stories, buried
Long in his memory, weird and wan, and pale,
Rose, and with solemn wail,
Told how in Eld were fallen spirits that hurried
At twilight from their caves, with spells to win
Man's erring soul to sin.
1, 2, and 3. These lines are strongly reminiscent of Poe. In S.L.M. these lines read:
“Told how of Old were demons, who had hurried
At twilight from their caves, with spells to win”
4. “hurried”. A poor rhyme for “buried.”
XLII
He turned to fly, but feared the demon's anger
And paused; then knelt, and murmuring a prayer
Rose with a feeble air
And turned to fly again; but now the languor
That bound his limbs had so oppressive grown
He stood — save trembling — stone.
6. In S.L.M. this line is:
“He stood like rooted stone”,
which is such a wretchedly mixed figure that Hirst should never have written it.
XLIII
Flowing the fragrance rose — as though each blossom
Breathed out its very life — swell over swell,
Like mist along the dell,
Wooing his wondering heart from out his bosom —
His heart, which like a lark seemed
Its way toward heaven, singing,
This stanza was considerably revised, The version in S.L.M. is:
slowly wing±ng
“Swell over swell it rose as though the blossoms
Breathed out their very lives — swell over swell,
In mist along the dell,
Upheaved, like odorous sighs from maidens’ bosoms;
While, like a bark, Endymion stood embayed
In fragrance fairy made.”
XLIV
Dian looked, on: she saw her spells completing
And, signing, bade the sweetest nightingale
That ever in Carian vale
Sang to her charms, rise, and Tilth softest greeting
Woo from its mortal dreams and thoughts of clay
Endymion's soul away.
XLV
Endymion, wondering, struggled — never dreaming
What lulled his senses — when a burst of song
Swept like a stream along
The enchanted air, flooding the landscape gleaming
With liquid light, and sinking in his ears
Till his eyes swam with tears.
2. “lulled”. S.L.M. has “hushed “ instead,
4. “landscape”. S.L.M. has “lakelet” here,
“gleaming”. Hirst uses this word so often in this poem that it ceases to have any value.
XLVI
He saw no more; those bright orbs shut, entrancing,
Dim, indistinct, but loveliest visions slid
Beneath each fringed lid;
Music was in his heart, his pulses dancing
Like Nereids to a shell; and violet sleep
Took him in gentlest keep.
2. “visions”. S.L.M. “shadows”.
3. “fringéd, lid”. Cf, Keats's “Endymion”,
“Those same full fringed, lids a constant blind”,
and Poe's “The Sleeper”, 26:
“Above the closed and fringed “Dream-Land”, 48:
and Poe's
“The uplifting of the fringéd lid”.
The expression is Shakespeare's however.
XLVII
He stood a moment, then in silence sinking,
Slumbered unconscious on the odorous bloom,
When, from the willow's gloom,
Her jewelled zone unbound’, her large eyes drinking
Rapturous joy, with softest love entranced
Dian in light advanced.
The S.L.M. version of the first four lines is quite different, as follows:
“A moment pausing, in its passing sinking,
He lay in dreams along the odorous blooms,
When, from the willow's glooms,
Her rosy zone unbound, her large eyes drinking
2. “odorous”. See Poe's “Al Aaraaf”, I, 72. The word is also used by Keats.
4 and 5. Cf. with the line in Hirst's “Isabelle”:
“Her lustrous eyes grew large with love”.
6. A good line.
XLVIII
Like the freed soul when death's last pang is over
Standing contemplating the breathless clay
Before she soars away
Through starry spheres, so Dian o’er her lover,
Wreathed with the mist purpureally bright,
Stood, trembling with delight.
3 and 4. “Soars away Through starry spheres”. Cf. Keats's “Endymion”, II, 755:
“Or lift me with thee to some starry sphere?”
5 and 6. Cf. the conception tn these lines with the following lines (36-41) from Poe's “Al Aaraaf”, Part I:
“Rich clouds, for canopies, about her curled —
Fit emblems of the model of her world —
Seen but in beauty — not impeding sight
Of other beauty glittering thro’ the light —
A wreath that twined each starry form around,
And all the opal’d air in color bound.”
5. “purpureally”. A very unusual word, which is not used by Keats. Shelley comes very near to it in “Queen Mab”, I, 102:
“Spread a purpureal halo round the scene”.
He also has “the purple mist of love”, in the second version of his “Epithalamium”, line 27.
Poe, in “Not long ago, the writer of these lines”, first printed in 1848, has the line:
“Amid empurpled vapors, far away”.
See also stanza LII below, and notes on it.
XLIX
Endymion stirred; his bosom swelled, for near it
His heaving heart averred there stood the one
He thence should love alone; [page 120:]
And though his lips were moveless, still the spirit
Spoke with a lute-like voice, ringing and clear,
To her secretest ear.
2 and 3. These lines are in the typical style of the sentimental versifiers of Hirst's time. Almost every poem of Hirst's which deals with love has a “heaving’ heart” in it.
Endymion's “heart averred” a falsehood in this ce.se, because before the end of the story he loves Chromia.
4. “moveless”. An uncommon word, which has recently been used effectively by Walter de la Mare in his little poem called “Silver”.
5. “lute-like voice”. Cf. Keats's “Lamia”, I, 167:
“And in the air, her new voice luting soft”.
L.
“Divinest Dian, lily-breasted Dian!
Look down on me and bless me with thy love,
Thou! that hast round me wove
I Such heavenly dreams, that, though a simple scion
Of one thy radiant peers may deem a clod
I seem to grow a God!”
1 and 4. “Dian” and “scion”. “scions” in his “Endymion”, Keats rhymes “Dian's” with II, 692 and 693.
LI
She glanced above; the curious stars seemed brighter;
Peering with laughing eyes; and whispers crept
From where with woodlands slept;
The flowrets shook; the very night grew lighter: [page 121:]
The lake seemed, smiling at her, ‘till her frame
Tingled, ancl blushed with shame.
6. Compare Diana's words in Keats’ “Endymion”, II, 781:
“And I must blush in heaven.”
and in II, 778-9:
“nor for very shame can own
Myself to thee”.
LII
She waved her rosy fingers; gently swelling,
Hose from the lake, the fountain and the ground,
A mist which sailed around
Shrouding the scene, flowing and floating, swelling
In fitful forms, wave over wave, on high
Spirally to the sky.
1. “rosy fingers”. Cf. Tennyson's “Oenone”, line 172:
“With rosy slender fingers”
“swelling”. The S.L.M. version has “welling” instead, and it is difficult to understand why Hirst changed it to “swelling”, since the fourth line ends’ with the same word.
3. “sailed”. S.L.M. has “soared”.
“a mist which sailed around”. Cf. Keats's “Endymion”, IV, 367:
“There curled a purple mist around them”.
See also the notes on the following stanza.
LIII
Orange and amethyst, emerald and yellow,
Crimson, and violet deep yet dimly blue
As heaven's cerulean hue,
It rose; and then a cadence sweet and mellow
Fell on his ravished! ears, — “Unveil thine eyes,
Endymion — Love! — arise!”
In S.L.M. this stanza reads:
Orange and amethyst, emerald and yellow,
Crimson, and violet deep and dimly blue
As heaven's delicious hue,
It rose; and then a cadence sweet and mellow
Swept from it like a lark, — “unveil thine eyes,
Endymion — love, arise!”
1. “amethyst”. See Keats's “Endymion”, IV, 385-389:
“His litter of smooth semilucent mist,
Diversely ting’d with rose and amethyst”,
and his “Lamia”, I, 162:
“Of all her sapphires, greens, and amethyst”.
3. “cerulean”. This unusual adjective is used of the color of the sky by both Keats add Bryant, as follows:
“Through clouds of fleecy white, laughs the coerulean sky”
(Keats's “Imitation of Spenser”, 27)
“Blue, blue as if that sky let fall
A flower from its cerulean wall”.
(Bryant's “To a Fringed Gentian”)
1, 2 and 3. Cf. this whole passage about the mist with the following one from Shelley's “Lines Written among the Euganeah Hills”:
“When a soft and purple mist
Like a vaporous amethyst
Or an air-dissolved star —
Mingling light and fragrance, far
From the curved horizon's hound
To the point of .Heaven's profound
Fills the overflowing sky”.
The first canto has been considered in some detail, because of its great importance as compared to the other three cantos of the poem. It was this canto only that was said to havd been written “after Keats”, and indeed it is in this canto that Hirst's story most closely parallels that of the great poet. In the notes to the various stanzas we have pointed out verbal similarities. It is to be observed especially that Hirst came closest to Keats's poem in the five stanzas, describing the flowers, which he omitted when he published the-poem in book form. There remain to be pointed out the general similarities of Hirst's story, in this canto, with that of Keats. In both stories Diana's first appearance to Endymion occurs after the moon has risen (see Keats, I, 591-595), and then disappeared (see Keats, I, 595-600). In both narratives Endymion is asleep when Diana comes; in both the goddess has caused beautiful flowers to spring up in their meeting-place, and many of the flowers are of identical kinds in the two cases. There are a number of differences between the stories, to be sure, and these we shall sum up later. But there are sufficient similarities in wordings in ideas to convince us that Hirst had read Keats's poem. When we add the fact that he had written a sonnet to Keats in which he mentioned Dian, and that there was a note referring to Keats's poem in the first canto as printed in the Southern Literary Messenger. and superimpose bn this evidence the facts that Hirst felt it necessary to repudiate the charge of plagiarism, and that he did not have a reputation for telling the truth, then there can be little doubt in anyone's mind [page 124:] that Hirst read Keats's “Endymion” before he wrote his own.
In the remaining three cantos of his poem there are not a few passages which seem to derive from Keats. But there are not so many as in the first canto, nor are they of so much significance. We shall content ourselves with giving a summary of the remainder of the story as Hirst tells it.
Canto II.
The light of the rising sun wakens Endymion, who, in his amazement at finding himself alone, wonders whether he only dreamed of the delights of Dian's love. But his memory of her presence is so distinct that he decides “it was no dream”. This realization causes him to “scorn his shepherd track” when he returns to it, and to grow cold to his mortal sweetheart, Chromia. He tells to his shepherd companions the story of Dian's appearance to him, although thunder interrupts his narration as a warning against such sacrilege. The shepherds wonder why Endymion is not struck dead, and accuse him of raving in madness. He says, “Though sad, I am not mad, nor do I rave,” and as he re-tells the story, there come a lightning flash and a crash of thunder which cause the shepherds to flee in terror. Endymion falls on his knees and prays -khat he may die,
“. . . . . Since it is hell to live
Fired by these new desires — this high o’erflying
Of earth's realities.”
At night Endymion returns to Mount Latmos. When the moon arises “weak, wan and worn”, he faints, and Dian appears to him “with a wail on her blue lips”, .moaning, and wringing [page 125:] “her pallid hands”. She is bemoaning the fact that Endymion has told of her love, and warns him that if evernhe embraces a mortal woman, he shall die. This, she says, will also be a punishment to her, because a goddess's agony is lofty yet she is also wrung by a woman's passion. Her memory is to haunt him wherever he goes. Jove has promised that, as long as he is true to her, she may appear to him in his sleep, and that at his death he will become an immortal God.
When Endymion wakes and returns to his shepherd friends he seems to be crazier than before, and they call him, “Poor moon-struck youth!” Endymion indignantly denies his madness and weeps. Priest of Jove appear, and accuse him of Blaspheming the gods. He replies, “Truth is not blasphemy”. The priests banish him from the country, condemning him to wander alone, and he goes forth proudly.
Canto III.
It is late autumn, with a cold breeze blowing. Endymion returns to Caria, with a stooped figure, and silver threads in his hair. He wears a jewelled toga, helmet and cuirass, and carries a massive sword. In the woods he encounters a group of his former countrymen wondering how they can do battle with their enemies the Phrygians, without a leader. Endymion offers himself as leader, and they accept the impressive-looking stranger. They win the fight, and return triumphant to Caria. A council .is held to discuss what honor shall be given to this leader, and it is finally decided to offer him the crown. At this point Chromia enters the scene, mad. Just as Endymion accepts the crown and Is made king, Chromia recognizes him. He acknowledges his name, and at the same [page 126:] time says that he will take care of Chromia.
Canto IV.
Endymion and Chromia walk through a beautiful glen, very hapry in each other's presence until the moong rises and a chill runs through Endymion, making him turn pale. Chromia starts to lead him away, but Endymion is quickly calm again. As tney sit in the peaceful woods, Endymion tells her that he has been sai. and “near to madness”, of his wanderings to Rome where he became a warrior, and of his return to Caria to die there. Chromia asks why he left, whereupon he tells that he had a dream of Dian's love but really loved Chromia all the while, and that the dream which haunted him for so long gradually left him and he became normal again. They plan for their marriage on the morrow.
There is “a radiant sunset* on the bridal evening, and all is happy. Then the moon appears.
(“At last she rose and staggered onward, flying
From maniac memory, while her lustrous eyes
Dropped diamonds down the skies
Still glancing backward, loath to leave and sighing,
She went her way, and passing frowning Mara
Walked onward through the stars.”)
When the group of friends comes to lead the bride home, the moon gazes on Endymion, till he is “almost wild with her calm loveliness”. The song of the merry throng calls him back to earth, while the moon pursues her way, “pallid, prey to anguish and dismay”, and he goes to his palace to meet his bride. As he reaches his door, suddenly a bright form opposes “his path, [page 127:] her lilted hand eloquent with command”. It is Dian, who asks him to tell her why he ‘has not been true to her. He replies by blaming her for his long sorrow and. his “blasted youth”. She begs him to leave his bride; but when he firmly defies her, she tells him to go and be happy. He kneels in reverence and gratitude, and the goddess bids him a sad farewell.
On the whole, Hirst manages his stanza with ease and some effectiveness. Many of his rhymes are banal or overworked, however, and his choice of words is in many places astoundingly careless.
There are some striking differences between this poem art that of Keats which remain to be pointed out.
Keats in his telling of” the legend, invented Peona as a sister and confidante to Endymion. Hirst does not follow him in this, but has given his Endymion a human sweetheart. Chromia does not appear in most versions of this legend, but Hirst had good classical authority for introducing her in his poem. Pausanias, in his Description of Greece (Book V, Elis I, I) gives the following account of the history of Endymion:(39)
“They say that the first Aethlins, that he was the son of Deucalion, and that he had who reigned over this laid was of Zeus and Protogenia, daughter a son Endymion. The Moon, they say, loved Endymion, and he had: fifty daughters by the goddess. Others, with more probability, say that Endymion married a wife; some say that she was Asterodia; others that she was [page 128:] Chromia, daughter of Itonus, son of Amphictyon; others that she was Hyperippe, daughter of Areas: at all events they agree that he begot Paeon, Epeus, and Aetolus, and a daughter Eurycyda’l
So, instead of ending his story as Keats does, with a hapny union with the previously elusive goddess, Hirst closes his tale with a return to mortal love. In this respect he is original, and which ending is preferred will depend on the nature of the reader. Keats's is the more daring of the two, and Hirst's is the more complacent. Probably no allegory is intended in either case.
Hirst's narrative is both shorter and simpler than the earlier one of Keats. His first canto has three hundred and eighteen lines (three hundred and forty-two in the Southern Literary Messenger), as compared to nine hundred and ninety-two in Keats's first book. The other parts have approximately the same proportion. It is interesting to note that each of the poems is written in four parts.
Hirst tells the story of three characters: Endymion, Diana, and Chromia. Keats has not only his three chief characters — Endymion, Diana, and Peona — but turns aside to tell three other stories: those of Venus and Adonis, Arethusa and Alpheus, and of Glaucus, Scylla and Circe. He also includes two songs: the hymn to Pan, and the song of Bacchus; and has long passages of reflection, especially at the opening of each of the first three books. We doubt very much whether Hirst was capable of any such sustained effort in poetry as Keats's poem represents, and we are certain that he could not approach the high power of many of Keats's descriptions [page 129:] and. reflections. The opening lines’ of Keats's poem are worth far more than all the verses that Hirst everwrote.
Aside from the taking of his main idea from Keats, we have noted many imitations in the first canto from other poets. There are surprisingly few from Poe, and it is somewhat strange that those from other poets come almost entirely from two poems: Shelley's “Lines Written in the Bay of Leruci”, and Tennyson's “Oenone”.
Griswold, in his “Poets and Poetry of America”, gives considerable attention to criticism of “Endymion”, including the following sentences:
“In the finish and musical flow of his rhythm, and in the distinctness and Just, proportion with which he has told his story, he has equalled Keats; but in nothing else. With passages of graphic and beautiful description, and a happy clearness in narrative, the best praise of Mr. Hirst's performance is, that it is a fine piece of poetical rhetoric. There is not much thought in the poem, and where there is any that arrests attention, it whispers of familiar readings.
“The fault of the book is want of a poetical delicacy of feeling; it is not classical; it is not beautiful; it is merely sensual; there is none of the diviner odour of poetry about it. Mr. Hirst's ‘chaste Diana’ is a strumpet. The metre, though inappropriate, to such a poem, is unusual, and is managed by Mr. Hirst with singular skill.”
While we agree with practically all of Griswold's accusations, we must make one exception. Hirst's story is sensuous, [page 130:] but not sensual, or at least not grossly sensual. His Endymion and Diana apparently love each other only for their beauty, but there is nothing repulsive in the story.
With all its imitativeness, “Endymion” is Hirst's most original poem of importance; with all its faults, it was well-reviewed and popular in its day and is the chief work by which he has been remembered.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 84:]
36. See letter from Fields to Hirst, quoted on page 22 of this essay.
37. Weekly New Mirror (N.Y.): Vol. III, pp. 271-272.
[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 88:]
38. See page 35 of this essay.
[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 127:]
39. From the translation by J.G. Frazer. London and New York: Macmillan and Co.1898, Vol. I.
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Notes:
None.
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[S:0 - LWHBHP, 1925] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Bookshelf - The Life and Writings of Henry Beck Hirst of Philadelphia (Watts)