EVENING VOLUNTARIES
TO LUCCA GIORDANO
EVENING VOLUNTARIES
GIORDANO, verily thy Pencil’s skill Hath here portrayed with Nature’s happiest grace The fair Endymion couched on Latmos-hill; And Dian gazing on the Shepherd’s face In rapture,–yet suspending her embrace, As not unconscious with what power the thrill Of her most timid touch his sleep would chase, And, with his sleep, that beauty calm and still. Oh may this work have found its last retreat Here in a Mountain-bard’s secure abode, 10 One to whom, yet a School-boy, Cynthia showed A face of love which he in love would greet, Fixed, by her smile, upon some rocky seat; Or lured along where greenwood paths he trod. RYDAL MOUNT, 1846.