Villanelle
Apollo left the golden Muse
And shepherded a mortal's sheep,
Theocritus of Syracuse!
To mock the giant swain that woo's
The sea-nymph in the sunny deep,
Apollo left the golden Muse.
Afield he drove his lambs and ewes,
Where Milon and where Battus reap,
Theocritus of Syracuse!
To watch thy tunny-fishers cruise
Below the dim Sicilian steep
Apollo left the golden Muse.
Ye twain did loiter in the dews,
Ye slept the swain's unfever'd sleep,
Theocritus of Syracuse!
That Time might half with HIS confuse
Thy songs,--like his, that laugh and leap, -
Theocritus of Syracuse,
Apollo left the golden Muse!
poem by Andrew Lang
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Related quotes
Ortho's Epitaph
Friend, Ortho of Syracuse gives thee this charge:
Never venture out, drunk, on a wild winter's night.
I did so and died. My possessions were large;
Yet the turf that I'm clad with is strange to me quite.
poem by Theocritus
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Apollo Laughs
'APOLLO laughs,' the proverb tells,
Far echo of old oracles,
A Delphic waif, —'Once in the year,
Apollo laughs.' O laughter clear
As sunshine, blithe as golden bells!
What mortal folly parallels
Olympian jest and so impels
To mirth till Heaven's bright charioteer,
Apollo, laughs?
'Tis when the annual critic knells
The death of poetry, while swells
Some faint, fresh wood-note, pioneer
Of music earth shall thrill to hear.
Then at Apollo's infidels
Apollo laughs.
poem by Katharine Lee Bates
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To Epicharmus
Read these lines to Epicharmus. They are Dorian as was he
The sire of Comedy.
Of his proper self bereavèd, Bacchus, unto thee we rear
His brazen image here;
We in Syracuse who sojourn, elsewhere born. Thus much we can
Do for our countryman,
Mindful of the debt we owe him. For, possessing ample store
Of legendary lore,
Many a wholesome word, to pilot youths and maids thro' life, he spake:
We honour him for their sake.
poem by Theocritus
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To Archilochus
Pause, and scan well Archilochus, the bard of elder days.
By east and west
Alike's confest
The mighty lyrist's praise.
Delian Apollo loved him well, and well the sister-choir:
His songs were fraught
With subtle thought,
And matchless was his lyre.
poem by Theocritus
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Hymn To Apollo
GOD of the golden bow,
And of the golden lyre,
And of the golden hair,
And of the golden fire,
Charioteer
Of the patient year,
Where---where slept thine ire,
When like a blank idiot I put on thy wreath,
Thy laurel, thy glory,
The light of thy story,
Or was I a worm---too low crawling for death?
O Delphic Apollo!
The Thunderer grasp'd and grasp'd,
The Thunderer frown'd and frown'd;
The eagle's feathery mane
For wrath became stiffen'd---the sound
Of breeding thunder
Went drowsily under,
Muttering to be unbound.
O why didst thou pity, and beg for a worm?
Why touch thy soft lute
Till the thunder was mute,
Why was I not crush'd---such a pitiful germ?
O Delphic Apollo!
The Pleiades were up,
Watching the silent air;
The seeds and roots in Earth
Were swelling for summer fare;
The Ocean, its neighbour,
Was at his old labour,
When, who---who did dare
To tie for a moment, thy plant round his brow,
And grin and look proudly,
And blaspheme so loudly,
And live for that honour, to stoop to thee now?
O Delphic Apollo!
poem by John Keats
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Antipholus of Syracuse: Why, but there's many a man hath more hair than wit.
Dromio of Syracuse: Not a man of those but he hath the wit to lose his hair.
line from The Comedy of Errors, Act II, Scene 2, script by William Shakespeare (1594)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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Rule Your Own World
The golden stool,
The golden love,
The golden horse,
The golden muse,
The golden egg;
But cleanliness is next to excellence! !
And like the joy of peace,
But, try to rule your world in peace without hurting your neighbour.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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Apollo And The Graces
APOLLO
WHICH of the fairest three
To-day will ride with me?
My steeds are all pawing at the threshold of the morn:
Which of the fairest three
To-day will ride with me
Across the gold Autumn's whole Kingdom of corn?
THE GRACES all answer
I will, I - I - I
young Apollo let me fly
Along with thee,
I will- I, I, I,
The many wonders see
I - I - I - I
And thy lyre shall never have a slackened string:
I, I, I, I,
Thro' the golden day will sing.
poem by John Keats
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The Inn of Apollo
Have you supped at the Inn of Apollo,
While the last light fades from the West?
Has the Lord of the Sun, at the world's end,
Poured you his ripest and best?
O, there's wine in that Inn of Apollo;
Wine, mellow and deep as the sunset,
With mirth in it, singing as loud
As the skylark sings in a high wind,
High over a crisp white cloud.
Have you laughed in that Inn of Apollo?
Was the whole world molten in music
At once, by the heat of that wine?
Did the stars and the tides and your own heart
Dance with the heavenly Nine?
For they dance in that Inn of Apollo.
Was their poetry croaked by the sages,
Or born in a whisper of wings?
For the music that masters the ages,
Be sure, is the music that sings!
Yes, they sing in that Inn of Apollo.
poem by Alfred Noyes
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My Muse Is Free
I swim in the glimmers on the rivers muse
There I muse of love and love muse of me
In muse is ecstasy
my muse is free.
I lay by the brook, the muse's brook
And thirsty, I get up, to get a little drink
When I look, I see, I think
A beautiful Muse and my heart is shook
I dwell in a soul, a soulful muse
And to its harmony my soul withdrew
To the trumpets of muse the song of blue
My soul a muse, I always knew
I smell the odor, of muse's incense
In its torpor my body sleeps in my soul
And I smoke the smoke of muse intense
I laugh at myself amusingly droll
With my muse's nymphs we love in Hellas
Naked and free in the republic
Of beauty and art of love's Bellas
We love to we're entirely love sick.
My muse is free from the Devil's temptation
My Muse is free from God's judgment
My Muse is my only wordly nation
My Muse is a dream, I live, I lament
poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
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Ballades I - To Theocritus, in Winter
AH! leave the smoke, the wealth, the roar
Of London, leave the bustling street,
For still, by the Sicilian shore,
The murmur of the Muse is sweet.
Still, still, the suns of summer greet
The mountain-grave of Helike,
And shepherds still their songs repeat
Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea.
What though they worship Pan no more
That guarded once the shepherd’s seat,
They chatter of their rustic lore,
They watch the wind among the wheat:
Cicalas chirp, the young lambs bleat,
Where whispers pine to cypress tree;
They count the waves that idly beat,
Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea.
Theocritus! thou canst restore
The pleasant years, and over-fleet;
With thee we live as men of yore,
We rest where running waters meet:
And then we turn unwilling feet
And seek the world—so must it be—
We may not linger in the heat
Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea!
ENVOY
Master,—when rain, and snow, and sleet
And northern winds are wild, to thee
We come, we rest in thy retreat,
Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea!
poem by Andrew Lang
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Rejected
Alas ! I have lost my God,
My beautiful God Apollo.
Wherever his footsteps trod
My feet were wont to follow.
But Oh ! it fell out one day
My soul was so heavy with weeping,
That I laid me down by the way ;
And he left me while I was sleeping.
And my soul awoke in the night,
And I bowed my ear for his fluting,
And I heard but the breath of the flight
Of wings and the night-birds hooting.
And night drank all her cup,
And I went to the shrine in the hollow,
And the voice of my cry went up :
' Apollo ! Apollo ! Apollo ! '
But he never came to the gate,
And the sun was hid in a mist,
And there came one walking late,
And I knew it was Christ,
He took my soul and bound it
With cords of iron wire,
Seven times round He wound it
With the cords of my desire.
The cords of my desire,
While my desire slept, ,
Were seven bands of wire
To bind my soul that wept.
And He hid my soul at last
In a place of stones and (ears,
Where the hours like days went past
And the days went by like years.
And after many days
That which had slept awoke,
And desire burnt in a blaze,
And my soul went up in the smoke.
And we crept away from the place
And would not look behind,
And the angel that hides his face
Was crouched on the neck of the wind.
And I went to the shrine in the hollow
Where the lutes and the flutes were playing,
And cried : ' I am come, Apollo,
Back to thy shrine, from my straying.'
But he would have none of my soul
That was stained with blood and with tears,
That had lain in the earth like a mole,
In the place of great stones and fears.
And now I am lost in the mist
Of the things that can never be,
For I will have none of Christ
And Apollo will none of me.
poem by Lord Alfred Douglas
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Jugurtha
How cold are thy baths, Apollo!
Cried the African monarch, the splendid,
As down to his death in the hollow
Dark dungeons of Rome he descended,
Uncrowned, unthroned, unattended;
How cold are thy baths, Apollo!
How cold are thy baths, Apollo!
Cried the Poet, unknown, unbefriended,
As the vision, that lured him to follow,
With the mist and the darkness blended,
And the dream of his life was ended;
How cold are thy baths, Apollo!
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Ultima Thule: Jugurtha
How cold are thy baths, Apollo!
Cried the African monarch, the splendid,
As down to his death in the hollow
Dark dungeons of Rome he descended,
Uncrowned, unthroned, unattended;
How cold are thy baths, Apollo!
How cold are thy baths, Apollo!
Cried the Poet, unknown, unbefriended,
As the vision, that lured him to follow,
With the mist and the darkness blended,
And the dream of his life was ended;
How cold are thy baths, Apollo!
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Syracuse is a lovely place, with five bucks you can eat, drink, and get by.
The Golden Cup
The golden cup,
I will now make them husband and wife!
For Edward was his son and Ethel was her daughter,
But the muse of love brought them together.
The sun fell on my knees and i said,
'Who shall bring me closer again to your love'?
And to weep in secret for the golden cup because,
The silence of the room made me remember!
They took the boy and cried out loud!
But what have they done to the girl?
And from Kenya to see my own people,
For the golden cup is now on the table at last.
Oh, if i could look on her sweet face once again;
And like the silent water slipping down from the hills;
For my lovely Isle is now far from me.
Things seen are not always righteous than things heard,
For my fingers went into the wet earth;
And the things known are higher than the things learnt,
For the reflections of the golden cup directed my moves.
It is better to leave an excavator concealed!
So do not give your brains a racking to lacking;
And like the blast of the doom without the golden cup.
This story is almost five hundred years old,
And it is very deep and very wide to sing with your muse;
For the candle-flame is sprinkled with slat,
And like your shoes so laid on the mat.
Down it came without the golden cup,
But put him into his own native cot;
And bring me a glass of the red wine,
For who will pity the lonely man at bay?
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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Goodbye Poet! ! ! !
Very sad when a Poet close your book
leave his pen and left us
So we say: There goes, Aphrodite, Apollo, Hades
find your ethereal Muse and make peaces with God
Because
The Poet goes different
He goes taking all of us with him
He goes but leaving your scrolls, hymns
His Ilíadas, Odisseias
For ever and Never
Because
The Poet let us different
He dare to be absent without a motive
confront dead and write the more beautiful Poem
Poet's heart now beats alone!
So go Poet
Go, because you are different
poem by Mirna Morgan
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On The Conflagration Of The Po
Why is, and whence, the Po in flames? and why
In consternation do its borderers raise
Imploring hands to mortal men around
And Gods above? Are Gods implacable?
Or men bereft of sight at such a blaze?
Apollo hath no more a son; his breath
Is stifled, and smoke only fills the air
Where once was fire, and men to men were true.
Fierce ones and faithless now approach the waste,
Who look transversely with an evil eye,
And scowl and threaten, and uplift the sword,
And, if they lower it, 'tis but to grasp more
And more of amber left on either bank. Apollo hates the land he once so loved,
Nor swan is seen nor nightingale is heard
Nigh the dead river and affrighted vale,
For every Nymph shed there incessant tears,
And into amber hardened all they shed.
poem by Walter Savage Landor
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If you want a beautiful woman, hurry to Syracuse: if you want her ugly, run to Terranova, go to Rosolini if you want her lazy and to Spaccaforno if you're looking for one to try.
Domingo
Oh Domingo! !
I have been left alone in the dark once again;
But, i am at the sheep-gate with the muse of love.
'Wazobia'! !
With opinionated controversies from the masses;
But my faith is with the Father in heaven.
I am the first born of the womb and,
Very intelligent to the realms of the stars! !
But, i have been left alone in the dark once again.
Just as it was written and just as it is written,
And like the sweet muse of love in the land of peace;
But, my mind will always search for you.
Respect, passions and deep emotion!
Gone too soon like yesterday when i was about to call you;
But, there is no future in yesterday.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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