University of Virginia Library

Suddenly I am rapt from out the real,
To the crystal sphere of the ideal!
Hark! 'tis the golden lyre of young Apollo,
Whom in a mystic dance the Muses follow;
Or Artemis, her huntress Oreads
Rousing the echoes of the still wood-glades,
Under a crescent moon; or wine-flushed Bacchus,
Drawn royally by his leopards—conquering Bacchus,
With all his rout of followers, ivy-crowned,
And wild Bacchantes—leaping to the sound
Of clashing cymbals, tossing cups of gold
And waving thyrses. Then, deep in some old
And sacred forest, wakes a silver din
Of shalms and shrill sweet pipes, and out and in
Among the tree-boles dart a merry clan—
The train of Pan!
And white-limbed wood-nymphs shriek among the boughs,
Pursued by lusty satyrs, till the brows,
The rugged brows, of Pan himself appear;
And forth the pageant issues, and such a clear
And jubilant shout goes up of ‘Pan! Pan! Pan!’
As was ne'er heard by man.
Anon the car of foam-born Aphrodeite
Comes surging through the spume, urged by the mighty
Arms of a triton throng—a pearly car
Of opal hues, wherein glows like a star
The goddess in her new-born nakedness
Of rose-flushed beauty—to the silver stress
Of Nereid harps, and deep sea-sounding horns
By sea-gods blown—such as on summer morns
Boom landward with the tide. And round her throng,
Sporting amid the spray, and oared along
By their white-ankled feet with gleeful ease,
The Oceanides:
The snowy tossing of their gleaming arms,
And multitudinous, billowy bosoms, charms
The ruffled waves to rest. Green-eyed sea-snakes,
With diamond coils that leave far-flashing wakes,
Follow behind.

But hark! the whelming thunder
Crashes above. Black storm-clouds, rent asunder
By angry lightnings, swallow up the scene.
The deep moans to the tempest. Icy keen
Fierce north-winds rushing down with frost and snow
Rave through the shrieking forest. In their woe
The gentle spirits of the earth cry out;
Aloft upon the blast a demon rout
Ruffians it through the spaces of the sky,
And from the deep shudders an awful cry:
‘The throne of Zeus is fallen!’