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 gray Dawn, Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone. Then I arise, and climbing Heaven's blue dome, I walk over the mountains and the waves, 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, With their ethereal colours; the Moon's globe And the pure stars in their eternal bowers Are cinctured with my power as with a robe; Whatever lamps on Earth or Heaven may shine Are portions of one power, which is mine. 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 HYMN OF PAN. FROM the forests and highlands We come, we come; Where loud waves are dumb Listening to my sweet pipings. The wind in the reeds and the rushes, The birds on the myrtle bushes, And the lizards below in the grass, Were as silent as ever old Tmolus * was, Listening to my sweet pipings. Liquid Peneus was flowing, And all dark Tempe lay The light of the dying day, Speeded with my sweet pipings. The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns, I sang of the dancing stars, I sang of the dædal Earth, And of Heaven-and the giant wars, And Love, and Death, and Birth. And then I changed my pipings, I pursued a maiden and clasped a reed: It breaks in our bosom and then we bleed: *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. All wept, as I think both ye now would envy or age had not frozen your blood, At the sorrow of my sweet pipings. If THE QUESTION. I DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way, Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring, And gentle odours led my steps astray, Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream. There grew pied wind-flowers and violets; Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth; The constellated flower that never sets; Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears, When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine, May, And cherry blossoms, and white cups, whose wine Was the bright dew yet drained not by the day And wild roses, and ivy serpentine, With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray; And flowers azure, black, and streaked with gold, Fairer than any wakened eyes behold. And nearer to the river's trembling edge There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prankt with white; And starry river buds among the sedge; And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green Methought that of these visionary flowers I made a nosegay, bound in such a way That the same hues, which in their natural bowers Were mingled or opposed, the like array Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours Within my hand,—and then, elate and gay, I hastened to the spot whence I had come, That I might there present it !—O, to whom? |