Classic Poem

The limbless one, the swimmer of dry ground,
His mighty track amid the forest wound:
And with advanced head dividing still
The bowing trees moved over vale and hill
When the strong mowers wade through deepest meads,
When the sharp keel beneath the pressed sail speeds,
Scythes leave their swathe, and ships their watery wake:
But shattered oaks confessed the earth-born snake.
Amid his path of ruin he full oft
Raised his imperious crest, and bore aloft
High o'er the topmost shoots his baleful eyes,
Searching the wood-walks and tree-galleries.
In the deep groves all things that make their haunt,
And prey on others, through the stress of gaunt
Necessity, armed with their single skill
One creature of the rest to choose and kill,
Owned the more monstrous scourge, which bore the power
Nought to discriminate, but all devour.
They ministered their tremblings to his might
In fascination: yea, as in delight
The stealthy wild cat and the pard would run
Frankly before the watchful head: nor shun
Their destined death, more than the innocents,
The fatted mouse, the hare in withered bents.
Then trembled Nature in her various kinds
New-sprung to life from the ooze that parching winds
Turned to dry land again, what time the flood,
Deucalion's deluge, was from earth subdued.
But who watched there the terror of the slime?
What lucent brow, appearing in what time
Above the rocky slopes, with mastering rays
Drew those brute orbs attent to answering gaze?
Apollo 'tis, from Delos island, lo,
New-born, but perfect, come with golden bow!
New-born, or ere upon the soaked plain
The scattered seeds of men were risen again,
Yet perfect in the manhood of a god,
The only human shape on earth that trod.
He, mighty one, the golden bow that bare,
Fair-limbed as man, of gods the god most fair,
In the first wonder of his glorious birth
With fear and horror viewed the plague of earth,
And righteous anger seized him. Had he been
Briareus, he in vain had watched the scene
His hundred hands of fury in the hold
Of that unmeasured trunk laid fold on fold
Had fainted into one: fell Typhon's breath,
Cast from a hundred mouths, had gasped in death
But his two hands upraised the chorded bow
Deliberately: his eyes upon the foe
Sped their clear hostile gleam: then hummed the string
As sweet to hear, as when the copses ring
To the peaceful lyre that by his quiver hung.
The sound far off around the valleys clung,
Speaking deliverance; and the mountains high
Sent it unscattered to the listening sky
But the dread shaft, winged with immortal strength
Rushed on the snake: fathoms of sinewy length
The dreadful head was cast against the god,
Then fell back, dragged in rage along the sod:
And spasms uphurled the soil: the mass convulsed
Subsided; and as still the strong pains pulsed
Through the opening wound to death, a dark pool stood
Where Python left on earth his dragon blood.