I come from a land in the sun bright deep,

  Where golden gardens grow;

Where the winds of the north, be calmed in sleep,

  Their conch-shells never blow.[1]

    Haste to that holy Isle with me,

      Haste—haste!

So near the track of the stars are we,

  That oft on night's pale beams

The distant sounds of their harmony

  Come to our ear, like dreams.

    Then haste to that holy Isle with me, etc.

The Moon too brings her world so nigh,

  That when the night-seer looks

To that shadowless orb, in a vernal sky,

  He can number its hills and brooks.

        Then, haste, etc.

To the Sun-god all our hearts and lyres[2]

  By day, by night, belong;

And the breath we draw from his living fires,

  We give him back in song.

            Then, haste, etc.

From us descends the maid who brings

  To Delos gifts divine;

And our wild bees lend their rainbow wings

  To glitter on Delphi's shrine.

    Then haste to that holy Isle with me,

      Haste—haste!

[1] On the Tower of the Winds, at Athens, there is a conch shell placed in the hands of Boreas.—See Stuart's Antiquities. "The north wind," says Herodotus, in speaking of the Hyperboreans, "never blows with them."

[2] Hecataeus tells us, that this Hyperborean island was dedicated to Apollo; and most of the inhabitants were either priests or songsters.