Clytia's Lament To Apollo

Oh, wilt thou ne'er again, when fade the eves,
Loved Cynthius, come soul-trembling to my joy,
Till raptured stars shall steal out on the skies
To hear the am'rous lay thy soft lute weaves,
And Hesper's wand'ring perfumes gath'ring cloy
The love-sick air with sweetness of their breath,
Sweetness that ecstacies the heart to death?
What was Assyria's daughter to thy love,
O, Cynthius sweet, that I'd not dared to be?
What lackedst thou, darling, that I did not fling
To thee as freely as the young winds rove?
Can soulless gems allure a god like thee?
Or gold decide in heaven all human odds?
Is constancy a crime among the gods?
Oh, how I loved, my now dark rage can tell
That when full surfeited with lip-delights,
Thou vanish'dst on the downy wings of air
Neath Leucothea's darkly woven spell,
And languished near her through the sultry nights,
In false caressings of her waving hair,
And left my anguish darken to despair.
When came the sluggard morn adown the hills,
I called my slaves: Ho! swift yon galley man;
Let loose the sail, and if the brave wind fail,
Toil at the oars till toiling tires and kills,
For life is nought to my hate-blazing scan;
Tell Orchamus, the king, with tongue of flame,
What Clytia knows of Leucothea's shame."
Then on they sped, O Cynthius, to her sire,
And scorched his heart with tellings of her sin,
Till he in anger sought her as she slept
Close-folded to thy heart of pulsing fire,
Then steeped his sword her silver bosom in,
And swift her corse to earth's embraces gave,
And laid the stone of silence on her grave.
At first thy tears were shed for this her doom,
And then thou dropp'dst ambrosia where she lay
And pearly nectar from the cups of heaven;
Yet couldst thou not unseal her eyes from gloom,
But called her forth, a tree, to glad the day,
Whose incense sweet might greet thee in the skies,
And wake mad mem'ries of her melting eyes.
I, then, all joyed that thou wert mine alone,
Lay on my perfumed couch and sipped of wine,
And made my minstrels sing old Paphian strains
To Venus on her pleasure-builded throne;
But still thou earnest not with the day's decline;
The moon gazed on me, and the shadows cried:
"Where is thy God?" "Gone! gone!" the night replied.
At last thou earnest, when I had worn away
My heart and hopes with longings for thy face;
And then thou earnest, not kissing as of old,
But masked in clouds as pall the bier of day,
To hide from me thy glowing pristine grace,
And bade me thus, a sun-flower, gaze in pain
Upon thy lips I ne'er should press again.
And now where lovers whisp'ring rove, love-bound,
Thou comest, lost Phoebus! near no more to me;
And though I turn to thee till thou art gone,
Responseless, on thy trackless, weary round,
Below the west, beyond the Aegean sea,
I rest unmourned, and bloom and fade with years,
While but sad even soothes my cheeks with tears.