Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts
Thick breaks the red flame.
All Etna heaves fiercely
Her forest-clothed flame.

Not here, O, Apollo,
Are haunts meet for thee,
But where Helicon breaks down
In cliff to the sea.

Where the moon-silver’d inlets
Send far their light voice
Up the still vale of Thisbe,
O, speed, and rejoice!

On the sward at the cliff-top
Lie strewn the white flocks;
On the cliff-side the pigeons
Roost deep in the rocks.

In the moonlight the shepherds,
Soft-lull’d by the rills,
Lie wrapped in their blankets,
Asleep on the hills.

What forms are those coming,
So white through the gloom?
What garments out-glistening
The gold-flower’d broom?

What sweet-breathing Presence
Out-perfumes the thyme?
What voices enrapture
The night’s balmy prime?

’Tis Apollo comes leading
His choir, the Nine—
The Leader is fairest,
But all are divine.

They are lost in the hollow,
They stream up again.
What seeks on this mountain
The glorified train?

They bathe in this mountain,
In the spring by their road.
Then on to Olympus,
Their endless abode.

Whose praise do they mention?
Of what is it told,
What will be forever,
What was from of old.

First hymn they the Father
Of all things; and then,
The rest of Immortals,
The action of men.

The Day in his hotness,
The strife with the palm;
The Night in her silence,
The Stars in their calm.