Classic Poems of Nature. 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, 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, THE MOON. Thou art folded, thou art lying On thee a light, a life, a power THE EARTH. I spin beneath my pyramid of night, Which points into the heavens dreaming delight, Murmuring victorious joy in my enchanted sleep; As a youth lulled in love-dreams faintly sighing, Under the shadow of his beauty lying, Which round his rest a watch of light and warmth doth keep. THE MOON. As in the soft and sweet eclipse, When soul meets soul on lovers' lips, High hearts are calm, and brightest eyes are dull; So when thy shadow falls on me, Then am I mute and still, by thee Covered; of thy love, Orb most beautiful, Full, oh, too full ! Thou art speeding round the sun Green and azure sphere which shinest With a light which is divinest In the weird Cadmæan forest. As a lover or cameleon Grows like what it looks upon, As a violet's gentle eye Gazes on the azure sky Until its hue grows like what it beholds, Glows like solid amethyst Athwart the western mountain it enfolds, When the sunset sleeps Upon its snow— THE EARTH And the weak day weeps That it should be so. Oh, gentle Moon, the voice of thy delight Prom. Unbound. THE MUSIC OF THE WOODS. SEMICHORUS I. OF SPIRITS. THE path thro' which that lovely twain Hangs each a pearl in the pale flowers Or when some star of many a one Ere it is borne away, away, By the swift Heavens that cannot stay, |