George Charles Whitney

Sunset

Behind the golden western hills
The sun goes down, a founder'd bark,
Only a mighty sadness fills
 The silence of the dark.

O twilight sad with wistful eyes,
Restore in ruth again to me
The shadow of the peace that lies
 Beyond the purple sea.

The sun of my great joy goes down,
Against the paling heights afar,
Gleams out like some glad angel's crown,
 A yellow evening star;

The glory from the western hills
Falls fading, spark on spark,
Only a mighty sadness fills
 The spaces of the dark.

James Lister Cuthbertson. [reprise]

Ode to Apollo

         "Tandem venias precamur
      Nube candentes humeros amictus
                  Augur Apollo."

      Lord of the golden lyre
      Fraught with the Dorian fire,
   Oh! fair-haired child of Leto, come again;
      And if no longer smile
      Delphi or Delos' isle,
   Come from the depth of thine Aetnean glen,
      Where in the black ravine
      Thunders the foaming green
   Of waters writhing far from mortals' ken;
      Come o'er the sparkling brine,
      And bring thy train divine —
The sweet-voiced and immortal violet-crowned Nine.

      For here are richer meads,
      And here are goodlier steeds
   Than ever graced the glorious land of Greece;
      Here waves the yellow corn,
      Here is the olive born —
   The gray-green gracious harbinger of peace;
      Here too hath taken root
      A tree with golden fruit,
   In purple clusters hangs the vine's increase,
      And all the earth doth wear
      The dry clear Attic air
That lifts the soul to liberty, and frees the heart from care.

      Or if thy wilder mood
      Incline to solitude,
   Eternal verdure girds the lonely hills,
      Through the green gloom of ferns
      Softly the sunset burns,
   Cold from the granite flow the mountain rills;
      And there are inner shrines
      Made by the slumberous pines,
   Where the rapt heart with contemplation fills,
      And from wave-stricken shores
      Deep wistful music pours
And floods the tempest-shaken forest corridors.

      Oh, give the gift of gold
      The human heart to hold
   With liquid glamour of the Lesbian line;
      With Pindar's lava glow,
      With Sophocles' calm flow,
   Or Aeschylean rapture airy fine;
      Or with thy music's close
      Thy last autumnal rose
   Theocritus of Sicily, divine;
      O Pythian Archer strong,
      Time cannot do thee wrong,
With thee they live for ever, thy nightingales of song.

      We too are island-born;
      Oh, leave us not in scorn —
   A songless people never yet was great.
      We, suppliants at thy feet,
      Await thy muses sweet
   Amid the laurels at thy temple gate,
      Crownless and voiceless yet,
      But on our brows is set
   The dim unwritten prophecy of fate,
      To mould from out of mud
      An empire with our blood,
To wage eternal warfare with the fire and flood.

      Lord of the minstrel choir,
      Oh, grant our hearts' desire,
   To sing of truth invincible in might,
      Of love surpassing death
      That fears no fiery breath,
   Of ancient inborn reverence for right,
      Of that sea-woven spell
      That from Trafalgar fell
   And keeps the star of duty in our sight:
      Oh, give the sacred fire,
      And our weak lips inspire
With laurels of thy song and lightnings of thy lyre.

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