IV

O brightest! though too late for antique vows,

      Too, too late for the fond believing lyre,

When holy were the haunted forest boughs,

      Holy the air, the water, and the fire;

Yet even in these days so far retired40

      From happy pieties, thy lucent fans,

      Fluttering among the faint Olympians,

I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspired.

So let me be thy choir, and make a moan

                        Upon the midnight hours;

Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet

      From swinged censer teeming;

Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat

      Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.