The voice of one for millions,
     In whom the millions rejoice
     For giving their one spirit voice. 
     Yet men have we, whom we revere,
     Now names, and men still housing here,
     Whose lives, by many a battle-dint
     Defaced, and grinding wheels on flint,
     Yield substance, though they sing not, sweet
     For song our highest heaven to greet: 
     Whom heavenly singing gives us new,
     Enspheres them brilliant in our blue,
     From firmest base to farthest leap,
     Because their love of Earth is deep,
     And they are warriors in accord
     With life to serve, and, pass reward,
     So touching purest and so heard
     In the brain’s reflex of yon bird: 
     Wherefore their soul in me, or mine,
     Through self-forgetfulness divine,
     In them, that song aloft maintains,
     To fill the sky and thrill the plains
     With showerings drawn from human stores,
     As he to silence nearer soars,
     Extends the world at wings and dome,
     More spacious making more our home,
     Till lost on his aerial rings
     In light, and then the fancy sings.

     Phoebus with admetus

     I

     When by Zeus relenting the mandate was revoked,
     Sentencing to exile the bright Sun-God,
     Mindful were the ploughmen of who the steer had yoked,
     Who:  and what a track showed the upturned sod! 
     Mindful were the shepherds, as now the noon severe
     Bent a burning eyebrow to brown evetide,
     How the rustic flute drew the silver to the sphere,
     Sister of his own, till her rays fell wide. 
     God! of whom music
     And song and blood are pure,
     The day is never darkened
     That had thee here obscure.

     II

     Chirping none, the scarlet cicadas crouched in ranks: 
     Slack the thistle-head piled its down-silk grey: 
     Scarce the stony lizard sucked hollows in his flanks: 
     Thick on spots of umbrage our drowsed flocks lay. 
     Sudden bowed the chestnuts beneath a wind unheard,
     Lengthened ran the grasses, the sky grew slate: 
     Then amid a swift flight of winged seed white as curd,
     Clear of limb a Youth smote the master’s gate. 
     God! of whom music
     And song and blood are pure,
     The day is never darkened
     That had thee here obscure.

     III

     Water, first of singers, o’er rocky mount and mead,
     First of earthly singers, the sun-loved rill,
     Sang of him, and flooded the ripples on the reed,
     Seeking whom to waken and what ear fill. 
     Water, sweetest soother to kiss a wound and cool,
     Sweetest and divinest, the sky-born brook,
     Chuckled, with a whimper, and made a mirror-pool
     Round the guest we welcomed, the strange hand shook. 
     God! of whom music
     And song and blood are pure,
     The day is never darkened
     That had thee here obscure.