I am ending my list of Victorian Poets with a poem by Oscar Wilde.
I don't think I need to say anything about Oscar - but here are a few words about Endymion, the subject of his poem:
In Greek mythology Endymion was a handsome shepherd boy. The moon goddess Selene, fell in love with him and bore him fifty daughters.
Zeus allowed him to choose any favour, and Endymion chose to sleep for ever, remaining deathless and ageless.
The ancient Greeks believed that Selene visited him every night to kiss him in his eternal sleep on Mt. Latmus, in Asia Minor..
ENDYMION
THE apple trees are hung with gold,
And birds are loud in Arcady,
The sheep lie bleating in the fold,
The wild goat runs across the wold,
But yesterday his love he told,
I know he will come back to me.
O rising moon! O Lady moon!
Be you my lover's sentinel,
You cannot choose but know him well,
For he is shod with purple shoon,
You cannot choose but know my love,
For he a shepherd's crook doth bear,
And he is soft as any dove,
And brown and curly is his hair.
The turtle now has ceased to call
Upon her crimson-footed groom,
The grey wolf prowls about the stall,
The lily's singing seneschal
Sleeps in the lily-bell, and all
The violet hills are lost in gloom.
O risen moon! O holy moon!
Stand on the top of Helice,
And if my own true love you see,
Ah! if you see the purple shoon,
The hazel crook, the lad's brown hair,
The goat-skin wrapped about his arm,
Tell him that I am waiting where
The rushlight glimmers in the Farm.
The falling dew is cold and chill,
And no bird sings in Arcady,
The little fauns have left the hill,
Even the tired daffodil
Has closed its gilded doors, and still
My lover comes not back to me.
False moon! False moon! O waning moon!
Where is my own true lover gone,
Where are the lips vermilion,
The shepherd's crook, the purple shoon?
Why spread that silver pavilion,
Why wear that veil of drifting mist?
Ah! thou hast young Endymion,
Thou hast the lips that should be kissed!
Oscar Wilde
Note: My illustration is 'Le Sommeil D'Endymion' (Endymion Sleeping) from an engraving by H.G. Chatillon (1810) after the painting by Anne-Louis Girodet (1767-1824).
Girodet painted 'Endymion Sleeping', depicting the beautiful youth in perhaps perpetual sleep struck by Diana's moonbeams, in 1791, whilst he was a student at the Villa Medici.
The picture was a sensational success at the Salon in 1793.
Great ending to our Victorian poets! Wasn't Stephen Fry fabulous in the movie? It is a shame 'they' were/are so persecuted. To me, it is Mother Nature's natural way of keeping down the population!