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(From Greece, from Mount Helicon)
ENCHANTED vale! | |
| Well did the early worshippers of song | |
| Choose thee to be their place of pilgrimage, | |
| That in thy quiet groves and still recesses | |
| They might invoke, with due solemnity, | 5 |
| The boon-inspiring power. Here they would come, | |
| From the blue islands, and the olive-groves | |
| Of Thebes and Athens, and thy laurel-crowned | |
| And golden banks, Alpheus, and the shores | |
| Of far Ionia, where the wooing air | 10 |
| Pants with a softer breath through myrtle groves, | |
| And thee, thou emerald gem, amid the foam | |
| Of ocean, whence thy guardian goddess rose, | |
| To be the world’s delight. From every land | |
| That heard the echo of those flowing sounds, | 15 |
| That dropping honey, which, from eloquent lips, | |
| Distilled persuasion, reverently they came, | |
| Clad in white robes, and crowned with wreaths of bay, | |
| And bearing golden harps and ivory citterns, | |
| And round the marble temple, and the fountain | 20 |
| Of soft and gentle harmony, uplifted | |
| The joyous pæan, through the bright-eyed day | |
| Singing, till sunset threw its yellow veil | |
| Round thy blue summit, Helicon, and Night | |
| Sat on her purple cloud, and dipped her bough | 25 |
| Of cypress in Nepenthe, and then waved, | |
| Over their leafy beds, oblivion | |
| And holy dreams; and when their God arose, | |
| And shook his yellow locks in the blue air, | |
| And dropped his shining dews, then they began | 30 |
| Anew their solemn chant, and up the heights | |
| They moved in measured march, bearing their hymns | |
| To Hippocrene and the crowning rocks, | |
| Whence they beheld Parnassus, white and bare, | |
| Glittering among the clouds, a golden throne | 35 |
| Rich with a waste of gems; and, as it rose, | |
| Touched with the sun’s first blaze, its forked peak | |
| Seemed like twin spires of flame, curling and trembling | |
| From earth to heaven. They saw,—and then they bowed, | |
| And worshipped in their hearts,—their voices paused, | 40 |
| Their harps were mute, and fearful silence told, | |
| More eloquent than words, their love and awe. | |
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