Endymion
The rising moon has hid the stars;Her level rays, like golden bars,Lie on the landscape green,With shadows brown between.
And silver white the river gleams,As if Diana, in her dreams,Had dropt her silver bowUpon the meadows low.
On such a tranquil night as this,She woke Endymion with a kiss,When, sleeping in the grove,He dreamed not of her love.
Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought,Love gives itself, but is not bought;Nor voice, nor sound betraysIts deep, impassioned gaze.
It comes,--the beautiful, the free,The crown of all humanity,--In silence and aloneTo seek the elected one.
It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deepAre Life's oblivion, the soul's sleep,And kisses the closed eyesOf him, who slumbering lies.
O weary hearts! O slumbering eyes!O drooping souls, whose destiniesAre fraught with fear and pain,Ye shall be loved again!
No one is so accursed by fate,No one so utterly desolate,But some heart, though unknown,Responds unto his own.
Responds,--as if with unseen wings,An angel touched its quivering strings;And whispers, in its song,"'Where hast thou stayed so long?"
Words in this poem
- diana n.
- The daughter of Jupiter and Latona; a virgin goddess who presided over hunting, chastity, and marriage; -- identified with the Greek goddess Artemis. [L. Diana.]
- impassioned p. p.
- Actuated or characterized by passion or zeal; showing warmth of feeling; ardent; animated; excited; as, an impassioned orator or discourse.
- oblivion n.
- The act of forgetting, or the state of being forgotten; cessation of remembrance; forgetfulness. [L. oblivio, akin to oblivisci to forget: cf. OF. oblivion.]
- fraught n.
- A freight; a cargo. [OE.fraight, fraght; akin to Dan. fragt, Sw. frakt, D. vracht, G. fracht, cf. OHG. fr merit, reward; perh. from corresponding to E. for + The root of E. own. Cf.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- unseen a.
- Not seen or discovered.
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
- stayed a.
- Staid; fixed; settled; sober; -- now written staid. See Staid.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Endymion is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Project Gutenberg ebook #1365; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Endymion, in The Complete Poetical Works (1839–1882), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1365, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/longfellow-poems/endymion.html, id L17498.
Form and metre
Endymion is 36 lines in 9 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is AABB, complete in 7 of its 9 stanzas. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.2 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 17% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABB starsA · barsA · greenB · betweenB
- 2 AABB gleamsA · dreamsA · bowB · lowB
- 3 AA-- thisA · kissA · grove · love
- 4 AABB unsoughtA · boughtA · betraysB · gazeB
- 6 AABB deepA · sleepA · eyesB · liesB
- 7 AABB eyesA · destiniesA · painB · againB
- 8 AABB fateA · desolateA · unknownB · ownB
- 9 AABB wingsA · stringsA · songB · longB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The rising moon has hid the stars; | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Her level rays, like golden bars, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Lie on the landscape green, | 6 | ···/·· |
| With shadows brown between. | 6 | ·/···· |
| And silver white the river gleams, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| As if Diana, in her dreams, | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| Had dropt her silver bow | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Upon the meadows low. | 6 | ···/·· |
| On such a tranquil night as this, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| She woke Endymion with a kiss, | 8 | ········ |
| When, sleeping in the grove, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| He dreamed not of her love. | 6 | ······ |
| Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought, | 9 | ·/˘···˘·· |
| Love gives itself, but is not bought; | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| Nor voice, nor sound betrays | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Its deep, impassioned gaze. | 6 | ··˘/˘· |
| It comes,--the beautiful, the free, | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
| The crown of all humanity,-- | 8 | ····˘/˘˘ |
| In silence and alone | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| To seek the elected one. | 7 | ···˘/˘· |
| It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep | 8 | ·····/·· |
| Are Life's oblivion, the soul's sleep, | 9 | ··˘/˘˘··· |
| And kisses the closed eyes | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Of him, who slumbering lies. | 7 | ···/˘˘· |
| O weary hearts! O slumbering eyes! | 9 | ·/˘··/˘˘· |
| O drooping souls, whose destinies | 8 | ·/˘··/˘˘ |
| Are fraught with fear and pain, | 6 | ······ |
| Ye shall be loved again! | 6 | ····˘/ |
| No one is so accursed by fate, | 9 | ······˘·· |
| No one so utterly desolate, | 9 | ···/˘˘/˘· |
| But some heart, though unknown, | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Responds unto his own. | 6 | ˘/···· |
| Responds,--as if with unseen wings, | 8 | ˘/···˘/· |
| An angel touched its quivering strings; | 10 | ·/˘·˘·/˘˘· |
| And whispers, in its song, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| "'Where hast thou stayed so long?" | 6 | ······ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.