University of Virginia Library

II. To Apollo.

Be still, ye vaulted skies! be still
Each hollow vale, each echoing hill,
Let earth and seas, and winds attend;
Ye birds awhile your notes suspend;
Be hush'd each sound; behold him nigh,
Parent of sacred harmony;
He comes! his unshorn hair behind
Loose floating to the wanton wind.
Hail, sire of day, whose rosy car,
Through the pathless fields of air,
By thy winged coursers borne,
Opes the eyelids of the morn.
Thou, whose locks their light display
O'er the wide ætherial way,
Wreathing their united rays
Into one promiscuous blaze.
Under thy all-seeing eye
Earth's remotest corners lie;
While, in thy repeated course,
Issuing from thy fruitful source,
Floods of fire incessant stray,
Streams of everlasting day.
Round thy sphere the starry throng,
Varying sweet their ceaseless song,
(While their vivid flames on high
Deck the clear untroubled sky,)
To the tuneful lyre advance,
Joining in the mystic dance,
And with step alternate beat
Old Olympus' lofty seat.
At their head the wakeful Moon
Drives her milkwhite heifers on,
And with measur'd pace and even
Glides around the vast of heaven,
Journeying with unwearied force,
And rejoicing in her course.
Time attends with swift career,
And forms the circle of the year.