Hymn of Apollo
The sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie,Curtained with star-inwoven tapestriesFrom 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.
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 cavesAre filled with my bright presence, and the airLeaves the green Earth to my embraces bare.
The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I killDeceit, that loves the night and fears the day;All men who do or even imagine illFly me, and from the glory of my rayGood minds and open actions take new might,Until diminished by the reign of Night.
I feed the clouds, the rainbows and the flowersWith their aethereal colours; the moon's globeAnd the pure stars in their eternal bowersAre cinctured with my power as with a robe;Whatever lamps on Earth or Heaven may shineAre portions of one power, which is mine.
I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven,Then with unwilling steps I wander downInto the clouds of the Atlantic even;For grief that I depart they weep and frown:What look is more delightful than the smileWith which I soothe them from the western isle?
I am the eye with which the UniverseBeholds itself and knows itself divine;All harmony of instrument or verse,All prophecy, all medicine is mine,All light of art or nature;--to my songVictory and praise in its own right belong.
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