I. <br />The sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie, <br />Curtained with star-inwoven tapestries, <br />From the broad moonlight of the sky, <br />Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes,-- <br />Waken me when their Mother, the gray Dawn, <br />Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone. <br /> <br />II. <br />Then I arise, and climbing Heaven's blue dome, <br />I walk over the mountains and the waves, <br />Leaving my robe upon the ocean foam; <br />My footsteps pave the clouds with fire; the caves <br />Are filled with my bright presence, and the air <br />Leaves the green Earth to my embraces bare. <br /> <br />III. <br />The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill <br />Deceit, that loves the night and fears the day; <br />All men who do or even imagine ill <br />Fly me, and from the glory of my ray <br />Good minds and open actions take new might, <br />Until diminished by the reign of Night. <br /> <br />IV. <br />I feed the clouds, the rainbows, and the flowers, <br />With their ethereal colors; the Moon's globe, <br />And the pure stars in their eternal bowers, <br />Are cinctured with my power as with a robe; <br />Whatever lamps on Earth or Heaven may shine, <br />Are portions of one power, which is mine. <br /> <br />V. <br />I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven; <br />Then with unwilling steps I wander down <br />Into the clouds of the Atlantic even; <br />For grief that I depart they weep and frown: <br />What look is more delightful than the smile <br />With which I soothe them from the western isle? <br /> <br />VI. <br />I am the eye with which the Universe <br />Beholds itself, and knows it is divine; <br />All harmony of instrument or verse, <br />All prophecy, all medicine, is mine, <br />All light of art or nature; - to my song <br />Victory and praise in its own right belong.<br /><br />Percy Bysshe Shelley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/hymn-of-apollo/
