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, 1 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 Deceit, that loves the night and fears the day; All men who do or even imagine ill Fly me, and from the glory of my ray Good minds and open actions take new might, Until diminished by the reign of night, 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 All prophesy, all medicine are mine, 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, 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 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 o be inserted in a drama on the subject of Midas. Apollo and Paa contended before Tmolus for the prize in music. I sang of the dancing stars, And then I changed my pipings,- It breaks in our bosom and then we bleed: All wept, as I think both ye now would, If envy or age had not frozen your blood, At the sorrow of my sweet pipings, THE BOAT ON THE SERCHIO. OUR boat is asleep in the Serchio's stream, The stars burnt out in the pale blue air, And the thin white moon lay withering there, 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, |