ELEGY THE FIFTH
THE PRIESTHOOD OF APOLLO
Smile, Phoebus, on the youthful priest
Who seeks thy shrine to-day!
With lyre and song attend our feast,
And with imperious finger play
Thy loudly thrilling chords to anthems high!
Come, with temples laurel-bound,
O'er thine own thrice-hallowed ground,
Where incense from our altars meets the sky!
Come radiant and fair,
In golden garb and glorious, clustering hair,
The famous guise in which thou sang'st so well
Of victor Jove, when Saturn's kingdom fell!
The far-off future all is thine!
Thy hallowed augurs can divine
Whate'er dark song the birds of omen sing;
Of augury thou art the king,
And thy wise haruspex finds meaning fit
For what the gods have in the victims writ.
The hoary Sibyl taught of thee
Never sings of Rome untrue,
Chanting forth in measures due
Her mysterious prophecy.
Once she bade Aeneas look
In her all-revealing book,
What time from Trojan shore
His father and his fallen gods he bore.
Doubtful and dark to him was Rome's bright name,
While yet his mournful eyes
Saw Ilium dying and her gods in flame.
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