Passing by Helicon

My steps are turned away,Yet my eyes linger still,On their beloved hill,In one long, last survey:Gazing through tears that multiply the view,Their passionate adieu.

O joy-empurpled height,Down whose enchanted sidesThe rosy mist now glides,How can I lose thy sight?How can my eyes turn where my feet must go,Trailing their way in woe?

Gone is my strength of heart;The roses that I broughtFrom thy dear bowers, and thoughtTo keep, since we must part—Thy thornless roses, sweeter until now,Than round Hymettus' brow.

The golden-vested beesFind sweetest sweetness in—Such odors dwelt withinThe moist red hearts of these—Alas, no longer give out blissful breath,But odors rank with death.

Their dewiness is dank,It chills my pallid arms,Once blushing 'neath their charms,And their green stems hang lank,Stricken with leprosy, and fair no more,But withered to the core.

Vain thought, to bear alongInto this torrid track,Whence no one turneth backWith his first wanderer's songYet on his lips, thy odors and thy dews,To deck these dwarfed yews.

No more within thy vales,Beside thy plashing wells,Where sweet Euterpe dwellsWith songs of nightingales,And sounds of flutes that make pale Silence glow,Shall I their rapture know.

Farewell, ye stately palmsClashing your cymbal tonesIn thro' the mystic moansOf pines at solemn psalms;Ye myrtles, singing Love's inspired song,We part, and part for long.

Farewell, majestic peaksWhereon my listering soulHath trembled to the rollOf thunders that Jove wreaks—And calm Minerva's oracles hath heardAll more than now unstirred.

Adieu, ye beds of bloom;No more shall zephyr bringTo me, upon its wing,Your loveliest perfume;No more upon your pure, immortal dyes,Shall rest my happy eyes.

I pass by; at thy footO mount of my delight,Ere yet from out thy sight,I drop my voiceless lute:Relentless Nemesis my doom hath sent—This cruel banishment.