In all that now around him breathes, Proportion sweet is ever rife; And beauty's golden girdle wreathes With mildness round his path through life; Perfection blest, triumphantly, Before him in your works soars high; Wherever boisterous rapture swells, Wherever silent sorrow flees, Where pensive contemplation dwells, Where he the tears of anguish sees, Where thousand terrors on him glare, Harmonious streams are yet behind-- He sees the Graces sporting there, With feeling silent and refined. Gentle as beauty's lines together linking, As the appearances that round him play, In tender outline in each other sinking, The soft breath of his life thus fleets away. His spirit melts in the harmonious sea, That, rich in rapture, round his senses flows, And the dissolving thought all silently To omnipresent Cytherea grows. Joining in lofty union with the Fates, On Graces and on Muses calm relying, With freely-offered bosom he awaits The shaft that soon against him will be flying From the soft bow necessity creates. Favorites beloved of blissful harmony, Welcome attendants on life's dreary road, The noblest and the dearest far that she, Who gave us life, to bless that life bestowed! That unyoked man his duties bears in mind, And loves the fetters that his motions bind, That Chance with brazen sceptre rules him not,-- For this eternity is now your lot, Your heart has won a bright reward for this. That round the cup where freedom flows, Merrily sport the gods of bliss,-- The beauteous dream its fragrance throws, For this, receive a loving kiss! The spirit, glorious and serene, Who round necessity the graces trains,-- Who bids his ether and his starry plains Upon us wait with pleasing mien,-- Who, 'mid his terrors, by his majesty gives joy, And who is beauteous e'en when seeking to destroy,-- Him imitate, the artist good! As o'er the streamlet's crystal flood The banks with checkered dances hover, The flowery mead, the sunset's light,-- Thus gleams, life's barren pathway over, Poesy's shadowy world so bright. In bridal dress ye led us on Before the terrible Unknown, Before the inexorable fate, As in your urns the bones are laid, With beauteous magic veil ye shade The chorus dread that cares create. Thousands of years I hastened through The boundless realm of vanished time How sad it seems when left by you-- But where ye linger, how sublime!