LYKEGENES.
Divine Corycides,
Whose chosen haunts are in mysterious cells,
And alleys dim through gleaming laurel-trees
Dusking the shrine of Delphian oracles,—
Under whose whispering shade
Sits the lone Pythian Maid,
Whose soul is as the glass of human things;
While up from bubbling streams
In mists arise the Dreams
Pale with the future of tiara'd kings—
Say, what the charm which from ambrosial domes
Draws the Immortal to Time's brazen towers,
When on the soul the gentle Thunderer comes—
Comes but in golden showers?
When, through the sealèd portals of the sense,
Fluent as air the Glory glides unsought;
And the serene effulgent Influence
Rains all the wealth of heaven upon the thought?
And as the questions ceased, fell every wind.
The ilex-boughs droop'd heavy as the hush
In which the prophet Doves brood weird and calm
Amid Dodonian groves;—the broken light
On crispèd waves grew smooth; on earth, in heaven,
The inexpressive majesty of Silence
Pass'd as some Orient sovereign to his throne,
When all the murmurs cease, and every brow
Bends down in awe, and not a breath is heard.
Yet spoke that stillness of the Eternal Mind
That thinks, and, thinking, evermore creates;
And Nature seem'd to answer Poesy
From her deep heart, in thought re-echoing "Thought."
ANTHIOS.
Thou, whose silver lute contended
With the careless reed of Pan—
Thou whose wanton youth descended
To the vales Arcadian,
At whose coming heavenlier joy
Lighteth even Jove's abode,
Ever blooming as the boy
Through thine ages as the god;
Fair Apollo, if the singer
Be like thee the gladness-bringer;
If the nectar he distil
Make the worn earth useful still;
As thyself when thou wert driven
To the Tempè from the heaven,
As the infant over whom
Saturn bends his brows of gloom,
Roves he not the world a-maying,
From his Idan halls exiled;
Or with Time repose in playing
As with Saturn's looks the child.
Therewith from far, where unseen hamlets lay
In wooded valleys green, came mellowly
Laughter and infant voices, borne perchance
From the light hearts of happy Children, sporting
Round some meek Mother's knee;—ev'n so, methought
Did the familiar, human, innocent, gladness
Through golden Childhood answer Song, "The Child."
LYKEGENES.
Lord of lustrating streams,
And altars pure, appalling secret Crime,
Eternal Splendour, whose all-searching beams
Illume with life the universe of Time,
All our own fates thy shrine reveals to us;
Thither comes Wisdom from the thrones of earth,
The unraveller of the sphinx—blind Œdipus,
Who knows not ev'n his birth!
On whom, Apollo, does thy presence shine
Through the clear daylight of translucent song?
Only to him who serveth at the shrine,
The priesthood can belong!
After due and deep probation,
Only dawns thy revelation
Unto the devout beseecher
Taught by thee to grow the teacher:
Shall the bearer of thy bow
Let the shafts at random go?
If the altar be divine,
Is the sacrifice a feast?
Should our hands the garland twine
For the reveller or the priest?
Therewith from out the temple on the hill
Broke the rich swell of fifes and choral lyres,
And the long melody of such large hymns,
As to the conquest of the Python-slayer,
Hallow'd thy lofty chant, Calliopé!
Thus from the penetralian aisles divine
The solemn God replied to Song, "The Priest."
ANTHIOS.