Hymn of Apollo

I.

The sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie,

Curtained with star-inwoven tapestries,

From the broad moonlight of the sky,

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.

II.

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

Are filled with my bright presence, and the

Leaves the green Earth to my embraces bare.

II.

The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I

Deceit, that loves the night and fears the day;

All men who do or even imagine

Fly me, and from the glory of my

Good minds and open actions take new might,

Until diminished by the reign of Night.

IV.

I feed the clouds, the rainbows, and the flowers,

With their ethereal colors; 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.

V.

I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven;

Then with unwilling steps I wander

Into the clouds of the Atlantic even;

For grief that I depart they weep and frown:

What look is more delightful than the

With which I soothe them from the western isle?

VI.

I am the eye with which the

Beholds itself, and knows it is divine;

All harmony of instrument or verse,

All prophecy, all medicine, is mine,

All light of art or nature; - to my

Victory and praise in its own right belong.