223 and 229. See also Moore's "Evenings
in Greece."
CHAPTER XXVI
ENDYMION--ORION--AURORA AND TITHONUS--ACIS AND GALATEA
DIANA AND ENDYMION
Endymion was a beautiful youth who fed his flock on Mount Latmos.
One calm, clear night Diana, the moon, looked down and saw him
sleeping. The cold heart of the virgin goddess was warmed by his
surpassing beauty, and she came down to him, kissed him, and
watched over him while he slept.
Another story was that Jupiter bestowed on him the gift of
perpetual youth united with perpetual sleep. Of one so gifted we
can have but few adventures to record. Diana, it was said, took
care that his fortunes should not suffer by his inactive life, for
she made his flock increase, and guarded his sheep and lambs from
the wild beasts.
The story of Endymion has a peculiar charm from the human meaning
which it so thinly veils. We see in Endymion the young poet, his
fancy and his heart seeking in vain for that which can satisfy
them, finding his favorite hour in the quiet moonlight, and
nursing there beneath the beams of the bright and silent witness
the melancholy and the ardor which consumes him. The story
suggests aspiring and poetic love, a life spent more in dreams
than in reality, and an early and welcome death.--S. G. B.
The "Endymion" of Keats is a wild and fanciful poem, containing
some exquisite poetry, as this, to the moon:
".
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