'Wake, sweet Endymion, for the night is young
And the moon has stolen her kiss,
For the songs of the evening are being sung
And your eyes I have sorely missed.
Hark, Endymion, to the bells being rung!
Let us dance to a night of bliss.
'Sweet youth, sleep you so heedlessly on
While Phoebe pines at your side?
Must you rest your dreaming head upon
The ebb and flow of moon-tide?
Let Phoebe lay down beside you till dawn
And be your own dream-guide.'
Like flowing water into his dreams she seeps
And finds herself adrift upon a lake.
But poor Endymion-yet still he sleeps!--
While the barge a ceremonial circuit doth make,
All bedecked with garlands so gay--Phoebe weeps
And cries, 'For pity's sake, love, awake!'
He rouses in his dreams, sore amazed;
His questions she did forestall
By stopping his lips with hers, quite unfazed,
And upon the naiads she did call,
While Endymion, knowing her, an arm he raised
And summoned the battle steeds of lore.
The lovers' plunge gentle naiads did buoy,
The depths of the lake they did explore.
Dancing nereids, so sweet and coy,
Fain would swim with mortals as in days of yore,
Pointing out fishes and coral for them to enjoy
While awaiting the battle steeds of lore.
Till Achilles, in pity, set Xanthus and Balius free
And loaned them to the lovers for the night.
Through amethyst skies they raced for all the stars to see,
Swift as the passage of the sweet, fickle, night.
Till dawn came creeping from the east, beyond the lea,
And from nowhere it seemed, came first light.
The moon had fled, the night had flown,
And Zephyrus had recalled his sons.
The seed of an idea in her love she had sown,
A night with her love awake she had won.
Endymion whispered to Phoebe when they were all alone:
'Each night into my dreams, love, do you come.'