The sunbeams are my shafts with which I kill Deceit, that loves the night & 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. I feed the clouds, the rainbows & the flowers With their etherial colours; 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. 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 & frown [;] What look is more delightful than the smile With which I soothe them from the western isle [?] I am the eye with which the Universe Beholds itself & knows it is divine. All harmony of instrument or verse, All prophecy, all medecine is mine; All light of art or nature;—to my song Victory and praise, in its own right, belong. (Shelley.) Pan (sings). From the forests and highlands We come, we come; From the river-girt islands W[h]ere loud waves are dumb, Listening my sweet pipings; The wind in the reeds & the rushes, The bees on the bells of thyme, The birds on the myrtle bushes[,] The cicale above in the lime[,] And the lizards below in the grass, Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was Listening my sweet pipings. Liquid Peneus was flowing, And all dark Tempe lay In Pelion’s shadow, outgrowing The light of the dying day Speeded by my sweet pipings. The Sileni, & Sylvans, & Fauns And the nymphs of the woods & the waves To the edge of the moist river-lawns, And the brink of the dewy caves[,] And all that did then attend & follow Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo! With envy of my sweet pipings. I sang of the dancing stars, I sang of the daedal Earth—- And of heaven—& the giant wars— And Love, & death, [&] birth, And then I changed my pipings, Singing how down the vale of Menalus, I pursued a maiden & clasped a reed, Gods and men, we are all deluded thus! It breaks in our bosom & then we bleed! All wept, as I think both ye now would If envy or age had not frozen your blood, At the sorrow of my sweet pipings. TMOLUS. Phœbus, the palm is thine. The Fauns may dance To the blithe tune of ever merry Pan; But wisdom, beauty, & the power divine Of highest poesy lives within thy strain. Named by the Gods the King of melody, Receive from my weak hands a second crown. PAN. Old Grey-beard, you say false! you think by this To win Apollo with his sultry beams To thaw your snowy head, & to renew The worn out soil of your bare, ugly hill. I do appeal to Phrygian Midas here; Let him decide, he is no partial judge.