Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HYMN OF APOLLO, by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY


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HYMN OF APOLLO, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: The sleepless hours who watch me as I lie
Last Line: Victory and praise in their own right belong.
Variant Title(s): Song Of Appolo
Subject(s): Apollo; Mythology - Classical


The sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie,
Curtained with star-inwoven tapestries,
From the broad moonlight of the sky,
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,
I walk over the mountains and the waves,
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,
Until diminished by the reign of night.
I feed the clouds, the rainbows and the flowers
With their aetherial colours; the moon's globe
And the pure stars in their eternal bowers
Are cinctured with my power as with a robe;
Whatever lamps on Earth or Heaven may shine,
Are portions of one power, which is mine.
I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven,
Then with unwilling steps I wander down
Into the clouds of the Atlantic even;
For grief that I depart they weep and frown:
What look is more delightful than the smile
With which I soothe them from the western isle?
I am the eye with which the Universe
Beholds itself and knows itself divine;
All harmony of instrument or verse,
All prophecy, all medicine are mine,
All light of art or nature; -- to my song,
Victory and praise in their own right belong.




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