HYMN OF APOLLO. THE sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie, Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes,-Waken me when their Mother, the grey Dawn, Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone. Then I arise, and climbing Heaven's blue dome, Leaving my robe upon the ocean foam; My footsteps pave the clouds with fire; the caves Are filled with my bright presence, and the air Leaves the green earth to my embraces bare. The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill Fly me, and from the glory of my ray I feed the clouds, the rainbows and the flowers Are cinctured with my power as with a robe; I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven, For grief that I depart they weep and frown: What look is more delightful than the smile With which I soothe them from the western isle? I am the eye with which the Universe Beholds itself and knows itself divine; All harmony of instrument or verse, All prophesy, all medicine are mine, HYMN OF PAN. FROM the forests and highlands We come, we come ; From the river-girt islands, Where loud waves are dumb Listening to my sweet pipings. The wind in the reeds and the rushes, And the lizards below in the grass, Listening to my sweet pipings. Liquid Peneus was flowing, And all dark Tempe lay In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing The light of the dying day, Speeded by my sweet pipings. The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns, And the Nymphs of the woods and waves, To the edge of the moist river-lawns, And the brink of the dewy caves, And all that did then attend and follow Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo, *This and the former poem were written at the request of a friend, to be inserted in a drama on the subject of Midas. Apollo and Pan contended before Tmolus for the prize in music. I sang of the dancing stars, I sang of the dædal Earth, And Love, and Death, and Birth,- Singing how down the vale of Menalus It breaks in our bosom and then we bleed: At the sorrow of my sweet pipings. THE BOAT ON THE SERCHIO. OUR boat is asleep in Serchio's stream, Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream, The stars burnt out in the pale blue air, Day had kindled the dewy woods, And the rocks above and the stream below, And the Apennine's shroud of summer snow, Day had awakened all things that be, The lark and the thrush and the swallow free, And the matin-bell and the mountain bee: |