What time the happy world was guided,
Ye Gods, by your indulgent hand,
When over happy men presided
Fair beings born of Fable-land,
Ah! what another age existed
When your mysterious rites were paid,
When garlands for thy shrines were twisted,
Venus, enchanting Cyprian maid.

When luminous imagination
Wrapped Truth in Fiction's airy fold,
Then life's blood flowed throughout creation,
And, wavelike, o'er its limits rolled.
In nature then a nobler merit
Man recognised with grateful love,
And all things felt the hallowed spirit,
Whose charm betrayed the Gods above.

Where now, if we shall trust the sages,
Insensate whirls an orb of fire,
There Helios in far-off ages,
Majestic, drove his golden tire.
Nymphs sported in these mountain passes,
A Dryad dwelt in yonder tree,
While winsome naiads from their vases
The silver-twinkling burns set free.

Good service wrought these laurel bushes,
Sleeps Niobe in yonder stone,
Sad Syrinx wails amid those rushes,
This grove hears Philomela's moan.
When her Persephone was ravished
This brook received Demeter's tears,
And here Cythera vainly lavished
Her suasion on unheeding ears.

The Gods themselves their homage yielded
To daughters sprung of Pyrrha's race,
And for their sakes Hyperion wielded
The shepherd's crook with lowly grace.
For then were Heroes, Gods, and Mortals
United in the bond of love;
Equal in Amathusian portals,
Men bowed with those who rule above.

All sceptic gloom and dulness vanished
Where your inspiring cult was known;
Untuneful souls were rightly banished,
And glad contentment ruled alone.
Then Beauty for itself was treasured;
No need your godlike joys to rein
While blushing Nymphs and graces measured
The limits of your happy chain.

Your shrines were decked in gayest dressing,
The Heroes in your honour strove,
And for the Isthmian laurels pressing,
Intent, the thundering chariots drove.
The changing dance in bright procession
Before your glowing altars wound,
And triumph-crowns with light oppression
Your free and fragrant tresses bound.

The thyrsus-bearers' cries are pealing,
The leopards in their harness strain,
And Fauns and Satyrs gaily reeling,
Herald the jolly Bacchus' train.
Half-frenzied Maenads wildly crying,
The glories of the wine-cup boast
In words and action, ever plying
With fuller bowls their willing host.

No grisly spectre dared to sadden
The parting mortal at his death,
For angel-guards were there to gladden,
Then quenched the flame with loving breath.
Necessity by airy visions
Was measured on a kinder scale,
And even Destiny's decisions
Seemed milder through a human veil.

The friends of yore were re-united
On still Elysium's shadowy plain;
True lover's vows afresh are plighted,
The victor's team careers again.
Once more the wail of Linus rises,
Her spouse reviews Alceste's charms,
His friend Orestes recognises,
And Philoctetes finds his arms.

With worthier prize was he commended
Who trod the stony path of right,
And Heroes, when their course was ended,
Shared with the blest eternal light.
The Gods with silent acquiescence
Beheld the summoned dead depart;
On high the great Twin brethren's presence
Gave courage to the pilot's heart.

Farewell! Thou happy world, whose graces
Attested nature's earliest Spring;
Now can we only seek thy traces
As fable tells and fairies sing.
Alas! the happy scene has vanished,
Before me yawns an empty frame;
The godhead, from the picture banished,
Leaves but a shade, a thought, a name.

Those buds have all untimely perished.
Before the scathing Northern blast.
Farewell, ye Gods, so dearly cherished;
Ye pass away that One may last.
In vain I seek with sad devotion
Selene in the starry dome;
The woods reply not, and the ocean,
Unheeding, churns th' eternal foam.

Blind to the joy which she dispenses,
And careless of her own great name,
Unconscious that my yearning senses
Demand her all-inspiring flame;
Whose pulse no longer Art can waken,
Blank as the stroke which marks the hour,
Nature herself, by God forsaken.
Bows, slavish, to a soulless power.

Behold! to-day her grave she hollows,
To-morrow sees her rise anew;
Month upon month serenely follows,
The days march on in order due.
The Gods depart, in sorrowing token
That happy childhood is out-grown;
The leading strings at length are broken,
The ungrateful world can soar alone.

All lovely form with them was taken
To grace the home whence erst they came;
So was the world by Art forsaken,
And Beauty left us but her name.
The Gods on Pindus' heights find leisure,
Untroubled by the tide of time;
And Fancy, crushed by life's stern pressure,
Lives but in Poetry sublime.