I walked a melancholic road through lonely vales And empty moorland, rested in dim grottoes, left Each heath behind without regret, nor fairer dales Expecting. Weary skies lost hope to Winter’s theft, And hungry, treading city streets where daylight fails, I sensed the greater solitude, a dream bereft Of sympathy, that crowds bear. Where the nightingales Had fled went I therefore: a secret, sheltered cleft. Then, from that wretched world of lost undwelling gone, I lost myself in blind, somnambular unrest, Until a hand clasped mine. We dreamt together then More light, more colours in a world that breathes again. That gift received, my sky, our sky, shone starriest; And I knew then no pity for Endymion.
Written some time ago for a Muse now estranged.