Hymn of Apollo

7Then I arise, and climbing Heaven's blue dome,

8I walk over the mountains and the waves,

9Leaving my robe upon the ocean foam;

10My footsteps pave the clouds with fire; the caves

11Are filled with my bright presence, and the air

12Leaves the green Earth to my embraces bare.

13The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill

14Deceit, that loves the night and fears the day;

15All men who do or even imagine ill

16Fly me, and from the glory of my ray

17Good minds and open actions take new might,

18Until diminished by the reign of Night.

19I feed the clouds, the rainbows and the flowers

20With their aethereal colours; the moon's globe

21And the pure stars in their eternal bowers

22Are cinctured with my power as with a robe;

23Whatever lamps on Earth or Heaven may shine

24Are portions of one power, which is mine.

25I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven,

26Then with unwilling steps I wander down

27Into the clouds of the Atlantic even;

28For grief that I depart they weep and frown:

29What look is more delightful than the smile

30With which I soothe them from the western isle?

31I am the eye with which the Universe

32Beholds itself and knows itself divine;

33All harmony of instrument or verse,

34All prophecy, all medicine is mine,

35All light of art or nature; — to my song

36Victory and praise in its own right belong.