flight. They advanced towards the galaxy, the moon
peeped out of the sky, the Bacchante faded away in the moonbeams. Her
steed dropped down to the earth; while the one which bore Endymion
continued mounting upwards, and he again fell into a sort of trance. He
heard not the celestial messengers bespeaking guests to Diana's wedding.
The winged horse then carried Endymion down to a hill-top. Here once
more he found his beautiful Indian, and for her sake forswore all
praeterhuman passion. She, however, declared to him that a divine terror
forbade her to be his. His sister Peona now re-appeared. She rallied him
and the Bacchante on their love and melancholy, both equally obvious,
and bade him attend at night a festival to Diana, whom the soothsayers
had pronounced to be in a mood peculiarly propitious. Endymion announced
his resolution to abandon the world, and live an eremitic life: Peona
and the fair Indian should both be his sisters. The Indian vowed
lifelong chastity, devoted to Diana. Both the women then retired. The
day passed over Endymion motionless and mute. At eventide he walked
towards the temple: he heeded not the hymning to Diana. Peona,
companioned by the Indian damsel, accosted him. He replied, "Sister, I
would have command, if it were heaven's will, on our sad fate." The
Indian replied that this he should assuredly have; as she spoke she
changed semblance, and stood revealed as Diana herself. She laid upon
her own fears and upon fate the blame of past delays, and told Endymion
that it had also been fitting that he should be spiritualized out of
mortality by some unlooked-for change. As Endymion kneeled and kissed
her hands, they both vanished away. The last words of the poem are--

"Peona went
Home through the gloomy wood in wonderment:"

words which may perhaps be modelled upon the grave and subdued
conclusion of "Paradise Lost."

This is a bald outline of the thread of story which meanders through
that often-skimmed, seldom-read, not easily readable poem--in snatches
alluring, in entirety disheartening--the "Endymion" of Keats. It will be
perceived that the poet keeps throughout tolerably close to his main and
professed subject matter--the loves of Diana and Endymion, although the
episode of Glaucus, which is brought within the compass of the amorous
quest, is certainly a very long and extraneous one. As we have seen,
Keats, when well advanced with this poem, spoke of it