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, 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 tinctured 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 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 Speeded with my sweet pipings. The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns, And the Nymphs of the woods and waves, And all that did then attend and follow, I sang of the dancing stars, I sang of the dædal Earth, And of Heaven-and the giant wars, 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 THE QUESTION. I DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way, Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, 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 And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine, Green cow-bind and the moonlight-coloured 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, With moonlight beams of their own watery light; Methought that of these visionary flowers I made a nosegay, bound in such a way THE TWO SPIRITS. AN ALLEGORY. FIRST SPIRIT. THOU, who plumed with strong desire Bright are the regions of the air, SECOND SPIRIT. The deathless stars are bright above: And the moon will smile with gentle light FIRST SPIRIT. But if the whirlwinds of darkness waken The red swift clouds of the hurricane SECOND SPIRIT. I see the light, and I hear the sound; I'll sail on the flood of the tempest dark, With the calin within and the light around Which makes night day: And thou, when the gloom is deep and stark, Look from thy dull earth, slumber-bound, My moonlight flight thou then may'st mark On high, far away. Some say there is a precipice Where one vast pine is frozen to ruin And that the languid storm, pursuing Some say when nights are dry and clear, And a silver shape like his early love doth pass THE WANING MOON. AND like a dying lady, lean and pale, SONG OF PROSERPINE, WHILST GATHERING FLOWERS ON THE PLAIN OF ENNA SACRED Goddess, Mother Earth, Thou from whose immortal bosom, If with mists of evening dew Thou dost nourish these young flowers |