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,
Who 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.