Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE FALL OF HEBE; A DITHYRMBIC ODE, by THOMAS MOORE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE FALL OF HEBE; A DITHYRMBIC ODE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Twas on a day
Last Line: The magic mantle of her solar god!
Alternate Author Name(s): Little, Thomas
Subject(s): Mythology - Classical


'T WAS on a day
When the immortals at their banquet lay;
The bowl
Sparkled with starry dew,
The weeping of those myriad urns of light,
Within whose orbs, the almighty Power,
At Nature's dawning hour,
Stored the rich fluid of ethereal soul!
Around
Soft odorous clouds, that upward wing their flight
From eastern isles
(Where they have bathed them in the orient ray,
And with fine fragrance all their bosoms fill'd),
In circles flew, and, melting as they flew,
A liquid daybreak o'er the board distill'd!
All, all was luxury!

All must be luxury, where Lyaeus smiles!
His locks divine
Were crown'd
With a bright meteor-braid,
Which, like an ever-springing wreath of vine,
Shot into brilliant leafy shapes,
And o'er his brow in lambent tendrils play'd!
While 'mid the foliage hung,
Like lucid grapes,
A thousand clustering blooms of light,
Cull'd from the gardens of the galaxy!
Upon his bosom, Cytherea's head
Lay lovely, as when first the Syrens sung
Her beauty's dawn,
And all the curtains of the deep, undrawn,
Reveal'd her sleeping in its azure bed.
The captive deity
Languish'd upon her eyes and lip,
In chains of ecstacy!
Now in his arm,
In blushes she reposed,
And, while her zone resign'd its every charm,
To shade his burning eyes her hand in dalliance stole.
And now she raised her rosy mouth to sip
The nectar'd wave
Lyaeus gave,
And from her eyelids, gently closed,
Shed a dissolving gleam,
Which fell, like sun-dew, in the bowl,
While her bright hair, in mazy flow
Of gold descending
Along her cheek's luxurious glow,
Waved o'er the goblet's side,
And was reflected by its crystal tide,
Like a sweet crocus flower,
Whose sunny leaves, at evening hour
With roses of Cyrene blending,
Hang o'er the mirror of a silver stream!

The Olympian cup
Burn'd in the hands
Of dimpled Hebe, as she wing'd her feet
Up
The empyreal mount,
To drain the soul-drops at their stellar fount;
And still,
As the resplendent rill
Flamed o'er the goblet with a mantling heat,
Her graceful care
Would cool its heavenly fire
In gelid waves of snowy-feather'd air,
Such as the children of the pole respire,
In those enchanted lands,
Where life is all a spring, and north winds never blow!
But, oh!
Sweet Hebe, what a tear,
And what a blush were thine,
When, as the breath of every Grace
Wafted thy fleet career
Along the studded sphere,
With a rich cup for Jove himself to drink,
Some star, that glitter'd in the way,
Raising its amorous head
To kiss so exquisite a tread,
Check'd thy impatient pace!
And all heaven's host of eyes
Saw those luxuriant beauties sink
In lapse of loveliness, along the azure skies!
Upon whose starry plain they lay,
Like a young blossom on our meads of gold,
Shed from a vernal thorn
Amid the liquid sparkles of the morn!
Or, as in temples of the Paphian shade,
The myrtled votaries of the queen behold
An image of their rosy idol, laid
Upon a diamond shrine!
The wanton wind,
Which had pursued the flying fair,
And sweetly twined
Its spirit with the breathing rings
Of her ambrosial hair,
Soar'd as she fell, and on its ruffling wings,
(O wanton wind!)
Wafted the robe, whose sacred flow
Shadow'd her kindling charms of snow,
Pure, as an Eleusinian veil
Hangs o'er the mysteries!

the brow of Juno flush'd --
Love bless'd the breeze!
The Muses blush'd,
And every cheek was hid behind a lyre,
While every eye was glancing through the strings.
Drops of ethereal dew
That burning gush'd,
As the great goblet flew
From Hebe's pearly fingers through the sky!
Who was the spirit that remember'd Man
In that voluptuous hour?
And with a wing of Love
Brush'd off your scatter'd tears,
As o'er the spangled heaven they ran,
And sent them floating to our orb below?
Essence of immortality!
The shower
Fell glowing through the spheres,
While all around new tints of bliss,
New perfumes of delight,
Enrich'd its radiant flow!
Now, with a humid kiss,
It thrill'd along the beamy wire
Of heaven's illumined lyre,
Stealing the soul of music in its flight!
And now, amid the breezes bland,
That whisper from the planets as they roll
The bright libation, softly fann'd
By all their sighs, meandering stole!
They who, from Atlas' height,
Beheld the rill of flame
Descending through the waste of night,
Thought 'twas a planet, whose stupendous frame
Had kindled, as it rapidly revolved
Around its fervid axle, and dissolved
Into a flood so bright!
The child of day,
Within his twilight bower,
Lay sweetly sleeping
On the flush'd bosom of a lotus flower;
When round him, in profusion weeping,
Dropp'd the celestial shower,
Steeping
The rosy clouds, that curl'd
About his infant head,
Like myrrh upon the locks of Cupid shed!
But, when the waking boy
Waved his exhaling tresses through the sky
O morn of joy!
The tide divine,
All glittering with the vermil dye
It drank beneath his orient eye,
Distill'd, in dews, upon the world,
And every drop was wine, was heavenly WINE!

Blest be the sod, the flow'ret blest,
That caught, upon their hallow'd breast,
The nectar'd spray of Jove's perennial springs!
Less sweet the flow'ret, and less sweet the sod,
O'er which the Spirit of the rainbow flings
The magic mantle of her solar god!





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