And now Apollo Sprang, golden-sandaled, from his orient bed, And quick his upward wonted path ’gan follow While westward still we sped. Apollo clomb The star-deserted dome, And, at the zenith sat, a noontide king; There with his outspread hands, Flaring upon the lands, Watched our white sail in the wind shivering. Apollo sank Adown the west, where many a cloudy bank Waited his coming, as the down, a king— While careful shades ’gan clamber, Out of the night’s dim chamber, Night of the many eyes and dusky wing. “Farewell, Apollo!” The lady sang, “we follow Thee to thy home, thy golden-curtained West; Amid the occident seas, Seeking Hesperides, Floating, we chase thee o’er the rippled breast Of Ocean in his rest. “Come Venus from thy lair, Up through the stirless air, Quivering with Love’s young heat and sweet despair; As thou wast wont to quiver Upon my childhood’s river, Where all the pendulous willows thrilled to bear The breeze, as men do, care. “Come out ye many stars! The liberal night unbars Your doors impalpable, that ye may see, And gaze a twinkling fill On human good and ill, Till daybreak’s irksome goad compelleth ye Behind the azure sea. “We come, we come, Seeking an islet home, Whose breezes all are balm, whose seas are calm; Where, when the eyes grow dim, Fair myths forever swim About the inward vision, and no harm E’er spreads a palsying arm. “Here would we lie Amid this tremulous beauty till we die; Here would descry Through roofing orange-boughs the pleasant sky, And silently decay in rapturous ease, When death so please.” She ceased; and now we slid along a sea Of tinted wavelets, such as ne’er before Had blest my seeing; on one side a shore Slipt past us backward, thickly over-bowed With flowered shrubs and trees, all such as flee Harsh Boreal bitings where the North blows loud. And now a quay we neared, whence led aback Full many a leafy-hung, nymph-haunted track. Then, slow-ascending a white marble stair, A grove we entered in, all carpeted With rarest moss, and every way there led Dim paths ’mid obelisks and fountains fair, And sculptured graces, and some streamlets fled All day and night down to the circling sea, Singing fore’er in music’s earnest glee.