I desire: and their speed makes night kindle;
I fear: they outstrip the Typhoon;

Ere the cloud piled on Atlas can dwindle
We encircle the earth and the moon:
We shall rest from long labors at noon.

On the brink of the night and the morning
My coursers are wont to respire;
But the Earth has just whispered a warning
That their flight must be swifter than fire:
They shall drink the hot speed of desire!
Percy Bysshe Shelley

HYMN TO THE SUN

NCE again thou flamest heavenward, once
Ngain we see thee rise.

Every morning is thy birthday gladdening human hearts and eyes.

Every morning here we greet it, bowing lowly down before thee,

Thee the Godlike, thee the changeless in thine ever-changing skies.

Shadow-maker, shadow-slayer, arrowing light from clime to clime,

Hear thy myriad laureates hail thee monarch in their woodland rhyme.

Warble bird, and open flower, and, men, below the dome of azure

Kneel adoring Him the Timeless in the flame that measures Time!

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

TE

HYMN OF APOLLO

I

HE sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie, Curtained with star-inwoven tapestries, From the broad moonlight of the sky,

Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes,— Waken me when their Mother, the gray Dawn, Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone.

II

Then 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

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

III

The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill Deceit, that loves the night and fears the day; All men who do or even imagine ill

Fly me, and from the glory of my ray Good minds and open actions take new might, Until diminished by the reign of night.

IV

I feed the clouds, the rainbows and the flowers With their ethereal colors; the Moon's globe And the pure stars in their eternal bowers

Are cinctured with my power as with a robe; Whatever lamps on Earth or Heaven may shine, Are portions of one power, which is mine.

V

I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven,
Then 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?

VI

I am the eye with which the Universe
Beholds itself and knows itself divine;
All harmony of instrument or verse,

All prophecy, all medicine are mine,
All light of Art or Nature; - to my song
Victory and praise in their own right belong.
Percy Bysshe Shelley

A MORNING

HE glad, mad wind went singing by,

THE

The white clouds drove athwart the blue,

Bold beauty of the morning sky

And all the world was sun and dew,

And sweet cold air with sudden glints of gold Like spilled stars glowing in the cedars' hold.

I laughed for very joy of life,

Oh, thrilling veins, oh, happy heart,
Of this glad world with beauty rife,
Exult that we too are a part;

Rejoice! Rejoice! that miracle of birth
Gave us this golden heritage of earth.

Oh, bold, blue sky, oh, keen, glad wind,
I wonder me if this may be,

That some day, leaving life behind,

Our eyes shall view new land, new sea So exquisite that, lo! with thrilling breath, We shall laugh loud for very joy of death. Theodosia Garrison

THE WILD WOOD