Lyric Poem · Nature

ENDYMION (For music)

by Oscar Wilde

Reading room

1The apple trees are hung with gold,

2And birds are loud in Arcady,

3The sheep lie bleating in the fold,

4The wild goat runs across the wold,

5But yesterday his love he told,

6I know he will come back to me.

7O rising moon! O Lady moon!

8Be you my lover's sentinel,

9You cannot choose but know him well,

10For he is shod with purple shoon,

11You cannot choose but know my love,

12For he a shepherd's crook doth bear,

13And he is soft as any dove,

14And brown and curly is his hair.

15The turtle now has ceased to call

16Upon her crimson-footed groom,

17The grey wolf prowls about the stall,

18The lily's singing seneschal

19Sleeps in the lily-bell, and all

20The violet hills are lost in gloom.

21O risen moon! O holy moon!

22Stand on the top of Helice,

23And if my own true love you see,

24Ah! if you see the purple shoon,

25The hazel crook, the lad's brown hair,

26The goat-skin wrapped about his arm,

27Tell him that I am waiting where

28The rushlight glimmers in the Farm.

29The falling dew is cold and chill,

30And no bird sings in Arcady,

31The little fauns have left the hill,

32Even the tired daffodil

33Has closed its gilded doors, and still

34My lover comes not back to me.

35False moon! False moon! O waning moon!

36Where is my own true lover gone,

37Where are the lips vermilion,

38The shepherd's crook, the purple shoon?

39Why spread that silver pavilion,

40Why wear that veil of drifting mist?

41Ah! thou hast young Endymion

42Thou hast the lips that should be kissed!

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“ENDYMION (For music)” by Oscar Wilde — quilloak.com/poems/endymion-for-music

Quick facts

Poem: ENDYMION (For music)
Poet: Oscar Wilde
Length: 42 lines
Form: Lyric Poem
Themes: Nature, Love, Spring

Craft notes

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Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.

Shape: 42 lines · 3 stanzas of 14 lines
Line length: Mostly 8-syllable lines (tetrameter length).

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Author record: Oscar Wilde1854–1900
Source record: PoetryDBENDYMION (For music) by oscar-wilde, PoetryDB transcription
Display decision: Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
Publication record: Not recorded in the imported source
Text fingerprint: SHA-256 b9e8a8fd0a63fe4c…
Editorial handling: Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.

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Lyric Poem Nature Love Spring

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