49
A Song of Delos.*[1]
BY MRS. HEMANS.
Terre, soleil, vallons, belle et douce Nature,
Je vous dois une larme aux bords de mon tombeau;
L’air est ai parfume! la lumiere est si pure!
Aux regards d'un Mourant le soleil est si beau!
Lamartine.
A song was heard of old—a low, sweet song,
On the blue seas by Delos: from that isle,
The Sun-God's own domain, a gentle girl,
Gentle—yet all inspired of soul, of mien,
Lit with a life too perilously bright,
Was borne away to die. How beautiful
Seems this world to the dying!—but for her,
The child of beauty and of poesy,
And of soft Grecian skies—oh! who may dream
Of all that from her changeful eye flashed forth,
Or glanced more quiveringly through starry tears,
F
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* It will be remembered, that this beautiful Island was sacred to the ancient Greeks, from having been the birth-place of Apollo and Diana. None were born or died there—the mothers and the dying were carried to the neighbouring islet of Rhane. Solemn expeditions, with much priestly pomp, were frequently made from Athens to enforce this ordinance, particularly to propitiate the Gods in time of public calamity. Our era refers to the celebrated lustration, at the time of the Peloponnesian war, during the plague of Athens.
