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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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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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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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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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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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Webster Ford

Do you remember, O Delphic Apollo,
The sunset hour by the river, when Mickey M'Grew
Cried, "There's a ghost," and I, "It's Delphic Apollo";
And the son of the banker derided us, saying, "It's light
By the flags at the water's edge, you half-witted fools."
And from thence, as the wearisome years rolled on, long after
Poor Mickey fell down in the water tower to his death
Down, down, through bellowing darkness, I carried
The vision which perished with him like a rocket which falls
And quenches its light in earth, and hid it for fear
Of the son of the banker, calling on Plutus to save me?
Avenged were you for the shame of a fearful heart,
Who left me alone till I saw you again in an hour
When I seemed to be turned to a tree with trunk and branches
Growing indurate, turning to stone, yet burgeoning
In laurel leaves, in hosts of lambent laurel,
Quivering, fluttering, shrinking, fighting the numbness
Creeping into their veins from the dying trunk and branches!
'Tis vain, O youth, to fly the call of Apollo.
Fling yourselves in the fire, die with a song of spring,
If die you must in the spring. For none shall look
On the face of Apollo and live, and choose you must
'Twixt death in the flame and death after years of sorrow,
Rooted fast in the earth, feeling the grisly hand,
Not so much in the trunk as in the terrible numbness
Creeping up to the laurel leaves that never cease
To flourish until you fall. O leaves of me
Too sere for coronal wreaths, and fit alone
For urns of memory, treasured, perhaps, as themes
For hearts heroic, fearless singers and livers --
Delphic Apollo.

poem by Edgar Lee Masters
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I grew up watching a lot of the coverage of the early U.S. space program, all the way back starting with Mercury and then through Gemini and Apollo and of course going to the moon as the main part of the Apollo program.

quote by Linda M. Godwin
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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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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Unfaithfulness

When Thetis and Peleus got married
Apollo stood up at the sumptuous wedding feast
and blessed the bridal pair
for the son who would come from their union.
'Sickness will never visit him,' he said,
'and his life will be a long one.'
This pleased Thetis immensely:
the words of Apollo, expert in prophecies,
seemed a guarantee of security for her child.
And when Achilles grew up
and all Thessaly said how beautiful he was,
Thetis remembered the god's words.
But one day some elders came in with the news
that Achilles had been killed at Troy.
Thetis tore her purple robes,
pulled off rings, bracelets,
flung them to the ground.
And in her grief, remembering that wedding scene,
she asked what the wise Apollo was up to,
where was this poet who spouts
so eloquently at banquets, where was this prophet
when they killed her son in his prime?
And the elders answered that Apollo himself
had gone down to Troy
and with the Trojans had killed her son.

poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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Big Brother

Dont talk of dust and roses
Or should we powder our noses?
Dont live for last years capers
Give me steel, give me steel, give me pulses unreal
Hell build a glass asylum
With just a hint of mayhem
Hell build a better whirlpool
Well be living from sin, then we can really begin
Please savior, saviour, show us
Hear me, Im graphically yours
Someone to claim us, someone to follow
Someone to shame us, some brave apollo
Someone to fool us, someone like you
We want you big brother, big brother
I know you think youre awful square
But you made everyone and youve been every where
Lord, Id take an overdose if you knew whats going down
Someone to claim us, someone to follow
Someone to shame us, some brave apollo
Someone to fool us, someone like you
Someone to claim us, someone to follow
Someone to shame us, some brave apollo
Someone to fool, someone like you
Someone to claim us, someone to follow
Someone to shame us, some brave apollo
Someone to fool, someone like you
We want you big brother

song performed by by David Bowie
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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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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Written At Camberwell, Near London, In The Study Of Mr. Wainwright

Whilst happily I pass my Hours
In Camberwell's delightful Bow'rs;
From thence the beauteous Walks survey;
Or thro' the fragrant Mazes stray;
Or o'er the Study cast my Eye,
Where Virgil, Coke, and Horace lie,
Just Emblem of a Bosom grac'd
With Law, and Elegance of Taste;
Apollo I invoke in vain,
Apollo answers with Disdain:

``Mortal, you're here allow'd to roam.
``And bid to think yourself at home:
``O'er the Domesticks then preside;
``Let that content your Female Pride;
``In vain you call on me To--day;
``Here Wainwright only I obey.

poem by Mary Barber
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On the Outskirts of Antioch

We in Antioch were astonished when we heard
what Julian was up to now.

Apollo had made things clear to him at Daphni:
he didn't want to give an oracle (as though we cared!),
he didn't intend to speak prophetically, unless
his temple at Daphni was purified first.
The nearby dead, he declared, got on his nerves.

There are many tombs at Daphni.
One of those buried there
was the triumphant and holy martyr Vavylas,
wonder and glory of our church.

It was him the false god hinted at, him he feared.
As long as he felt him near he didn't dare
pronounce his oracle: not a murmur.
(The false gods are terrified of our martyrs.)

Unholy Julian got worked up,
lost his temper and shouted: "Raise him, carry him out,
take him away immediately, this Vavylas.
You there, do you hear? He gets on Apollo's nerves.
Grab him, raise him at once,
dig him out, take him away, throw him out,
take him wherever you want. This isn't a joke.
Apollo said the temple has to be purified."

We took it, the holy relic, and carried it elsewhere.
We took it, we carried it away in love and in honor.

And hasn't the temple done brilliantly since!
In no time at all a colossal fire
broke out, a terrible fire,
and both the temple and Apollo burned to nothing.

Ashes the idol: dirt to be swept away.

Julian exploded, and he spread it around—
what else could he do?—that we, the Christians,
had set the fire. Let him say so.
It hasn't been proved. Let him say so.
The essential thing is—he exploded.

poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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Music and Poetry

Lord Apollo, I’m like a lost man
Who has suffered the worst defeat,
The forever disappearance of his daughter;
I’m drunk from the cup of sorrow and praying
To your poetic heart of music to return my happiness again.

I’ve visited your shrines
And lit candles in the night sacrosanct,
I’ve tried to capture innocence and beauty
Like a child in the sunlight.

I spend so many days adrift in weeping
And walking the loveless streets
Searching for my soul
Abandoned to a woman’s heart.

I need a new song, Lord Apollo,
And I’ll relinquish everything else I’ve known,
I seek the solace of oblivion.

poem by Uriah Hamilton
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The Funeral of Sarpedon

Zeus mourns deeply:
Patroklos has killed Sarpedon.
Now Patroklos and the Achaians rush on
to snatch up the body, to dishonour it.
But Zeus doesn't tolerate that at all.
Though he let his favourite child be killed
this the Law required
he'll at least honour him after death.
So he now sends Apollo down to the plain
with instructions about how the body should be tended.
Apollo reverently raises the hero's body
and carries it in sorrow to the river.
He washes the dust and blood away,
heals the terrible wounds so there's no trace left,
pours perfume of ambrosia over it,
and dresses it in radiant Olympian robes.
He bleaches the skin, and with a pearl comb
combs out the jet black hair.
He spreads and arranges the beautiful limbs.
Now he looks like a young king, a royal charioteer-
twenty-five or twenty-six years old-
resting himself after winning
the prize in a famous race,
his chariot all gold and his horses the fastest.
Having finished his task this way,
Apollo calls for the two brothers,
Sleep and Death, and orders them
to take the body to Lykia, the rich country.
So the two brothers, Sleep and Death,
set off on foot toward the rich country, Lykia;
and when they reached the door
of the king's palace,
they handed over the honoured body
and then returned to their other concerns.
And once the body was received in the palace
the sad burial began, with processions and honours and dirges,
with many libations from sacred vessels,
with all pomp and circumstance.
Then skilled workers from the city
and celebrated craftsmen in stone
came to make the tombstone and the tomb.

poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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Lucasta Laughing

Heark, how she laughs aloud,
Although the world put on its shrowd:
Wept at by the fantastic crowd,
Who cry: one drop, let fall
From her, might save the universal ball.
She laughs again
At our ridiculous pain;
And at our merry misery
She laughs, until she cry.
Sages, forbear
That ill-contrived tear,
Although your fear
Doth barricado hope from your soft ear.
That which still makes her mirth to flow,
Is our sinister-handed woe,
Which downwards on its head doth go,
And, ere that it is sown, doth grow.
This makes her spleen contract,
And her just pleasure feast:
For the unjustest act
Is still the pleasant'st jest.

poem by Richard Lovelace
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The happy household

It's when the birds go piping and the daylight slowly breaks,
That, clamoring for his dinner, our precious baby wakes;
Then it's sleep no more for baby, and it's sleep no more for me,
For, when he wants his dinner, why it's dinner it must be!
And of that lacteal fluid he partakes with great ado,
While gran'ma laughs,
And gran'pa laughs,
And wife, she laughs,
And I - well, I laugh, too!

You'd think, to see us carrying on about that little tad,
That, like as not, that baby was the first we'd ever had;
But, sakes alive! he isn't, yet we people make a fuss
As if the only baby in the world had come to us!
And, morning, noon, and night-time, whatever he may do,
Gran'ma, she laughs,
Gran'pa, he laughs,
Wife, she laughs,
And I, of course, laugh, too!

But once - a likely spell ago - when that poor little chick
From teething or from some such ill of infancy fell sick,
You wouldn't know us people as the same that went about
A-feelin' good all over, just to hear him crow and shout;
And, though the doctor poohed our fears and said he'd pull him through,
Old gran'ma cried,
And gran'pa cried,
And wife, she cried,
And I - yes, I cried, too!

It makes us all feel good to have a baby on the place,
With his everlastin' crowing and his dimpling, dumpling face;
The patter of his pinky feet makes music everywhere,
And when he shakes those fists of his, good-by to every care!
No matter what our trouble is, when he begins to coo,
Old gran'ma laughs,
And gran'pa laughs,
Wife, she laughs,
And I - you bet, I laugh, too!

poem by Eugene Field
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Laughs

A woman laughs more, laughs often.
She laughs more in front of men,
More so in front of whom she values
And a man enjoys her every laugh.
05.08.2005

poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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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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Phœbus Apollo

Hear us, Phœbus Apollo, who are shorn of contempt and pride,
Humbled and crushed in a world gone wrong since the smoke on thine altars died;
Hear us, Lord of the morning, King of the Eastern Flame,
Dawn on our doubts and darkness and the night of our later shame!
There are strange gods come among us, of passion, and scorn, and greed;
They are throned in our stately cities, our sons at their altars bleed:
The smoke of their thousand battles hath blinded thy children’s eyes,
And our hearts are sick for a ruler that answers us not with lies,
Sick for thy light unblemished, great fruit of Latona’s pain—
Hear us, Phœbus Apollo, and come to thine own again!

Our eyes, of earth grown weary, through the backward ages peer,
Till, wooed by our eager craving, the scent of thy birth grows clear
And across the calm Ægean, gray-green in the early morn,
We hear the cry of the circling swans that salute the god new-born—
The challenge of mighty Python, the song of thy shafts that go
Straight to the heart of the monster, sped from the loosened bow.
Again through the vale of Tempe a magical music rings
The songs of the marching muses, the ripple of fingered strings!
But this is our dreaming only; we wait for a stronger strain:
Hear us, Phœbus Apollo, and come to thine own again!

There are some among us, Diviner, who know not thy way or will,
Some of thy rebel children who bow to the strange gods still;
Some that dream of oppression, and many that dream of gold,
Whose ears are deaf to the music that gladdened the world of old.
But we, the few and the faithful, we are weary of wars unjust,
There is left no god of our thousand gods that we love, believe, or trust;
In our courts is justice scoffed at, in our senates gold has sway,
And the deeds of our priests and preachers make mock of the words they say!
Cardinals, kings, and captains, there is left none fit to reign:
Hear us, Phœbus Apollo, and come to thine own again!

We have hearkened to creeds unnumbered, we have given them trial and test,
And the creed of thy Delphic temple is still of them all the best;
Thy clean-limbed, lithe disciples, slender, and strong, and young,
The swing of their long processions, the lilt of the songs they sung,
Thine own majestic presence, pursuing the nymph of dawn,
In thy chariot eastward blazing, by the swans and griffons drawn;
The spell of thy liquid music, once heard in the speeding year: —
These are the things, Great Archer, that we yearn to see and hear,
For beside thy creed untarnished all others are stale and vain!
Hear us, Phœbus Apollo, and come to thine own again!

Monarch of light and laughter, honor, and trust, and truth,
God of all inspiration, King of eternal youth,
Whose words are fitted to music as jewels are set in gold,
There is need of thy splendid worship in a world grown grim and old!
We have drunk the wine of the ages, we are come to the dregs and lees,
And the shrines are all unworthy where we bend reluctant knees;
The brand of the beast is on us, we grovel, and grope, and err,
Wake, Great god of the Morning, the moment has come to stir!
The stars of our night of evil on a wan horizon wane: —
Hear us, Phœbus Apollo, and come to thine own again!

poem by Guy Wetmore Carryl from The Garden of Years and Other Poems (1900)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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