Invocation

    INVOCATION.

    THEE, Apollo, in a ring
    We encompass, carolling
    Of the flowers, fruits and creatures

    That thy features
    Do express, and by thy side
    Live their life half -deified :
    Grasshoppers that round thee spring
    From their mirth no minute sparing ;
    Hawk and griffin arrow-eyed;
    Cock the gracious day declaring ;
    Olive that can only flourish
    Where the fruiting sunbeams nourish;
    Laurel that can never fade,
    That in winter doth incline her
    Lustrous branches to embraid
    Chaplets for the lyric brow ;
    The white swan, that fair diviner,
    IVho in death a bliss descrying
    Sings her sweetest notes a-dying :
    These, all these, to thee we vow,
    We thy nymphs who in a ring
    Dance around thee, carolling.