Touched by his orient beam, responsive rings
The living lyre, and vibrates all its strings;
Accordant aisles the tender tones prolong,
And holy echoes swell the adoring song."
Darwin.
Apollo having slain with his arrows, Python, a monstrous serpent which desolated the beautiful country around Parnassus, his victory was celebrated in all Greece by the young Pythians; where crowns,
formed at first of the branches of oak, but afterwards of laurel, were distributed to the conquerors, and where they contended for the prize of dancing, music and poetry.
It is from his encounter with this serpent, that in the statues which remain of him, our eyes are familiar with the bow placed in his grasp.
————————"The lord of the unerring bow,
The god of life, and poesy, and light,