To the end of the trail / Richard Hovey [electronic text]

[ep. (epode) β.

Spirit of beauty, not without A hidden sorrow at thy heart We fable thee, — though what thou art In truth, we cannot choose but doubt, — For all the beauty that we know Is pierced with a secret sense of pain, And not till the time-floods cease to flow Can the sad and sweet be cleft in twain. O grand Greek god! — for I hold it true, That strange myth blown from the Doric sea — O bay-bound brow that so well I knew, When faith was an easy thing to me! Bright god of song! Strong lord of light! Earth and the sea take beauty at thy sight; The Python shrivels, pierced with thy lance; And the dead rise at thy life-giving glance.

Spirit of beauty, born of the divine breath With its first issuance into Time and Space! Shaping the whole creation into grace Through intimate interflux of life and death! Lifting the transient, as it anguisheth, To the serene wherein change hath no place! High Son of God, that lookest on God's face! Supremest angel that God uttereth! Make me a flute for thy lips, a lute for thy fingers! Take me, O lord of the lyre, — the least of thy singers, Least of the voices that follow thee, lured from thy feet by none other, Least of thy servants, Apollo, whose wages are sunlight and tears — Take me to rest in thy deeps, as a child at the breast of its mother, Give me the peace of thy kiss and strength for the strife of the years! Bitter and sweet are thy gifts. Thou hast borne me aloft as a feather That the wind blows hither and thither till it falls in the foam of the sea; Thou hast given me haven and home; thou hast given me wind and rough weather; And I lift thee my heart for a lyre, for the gifts thou hast given to me.