The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (ed. Hutchinson, 1914)/Hymn of Apollo

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

For works with similar titles, see Hymn of Apollo.

HYMN OF APOLLO

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824. There is a fair draft amongst the Shelley MSS. at the Bodleian. See Mr. C.D. Locock's Examination, &c., 1903, p. 25.]

IThe sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie,Curtained with star-inwoven tapestriesFrom the broad moonlight of the sky,Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes,— Waken me when their Mother, the gray Dawn, 5Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone.

IIThen 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 10Are filled with my bright presence, and the air Leaves the green Earth to my embraces bare.

IIIThe sunbeams are my shafts, with which I killDeceit, that loves the night and fears the day; All men who do or even imagine ill 15Fly me, and from the glory of my ray Good minds and open actions take new might, Until diminished by the reign of Night.

IVI feed the clouds, the rainbows and the flowers With their aethereal colours; the moon's globe 20And the pure stars in their eternal bowers Are cinctured with my power as with a robe;Whatever lamps on Earth or Heaven may shineAre portions of one power, which is mine.

VI stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven, 25Then 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? 30

VII am the eye with which the UniverseBeholds itself and knows itself divine;^[1] All harmony of instrument or verse,All prophecy, all medicine is^[2] mine, All light of art or nature;—to my song 35Victory and praise in its^[3] own right belong.

 

1. 32 itself divine] it is divine B.
2. 34 is B.; are 1824.
3. 36 its cj. Rossetti, 1870, B.; their 1824.