An Indian Apollo

Not like the airy god of moulded light,
Just stepping from his chariot on the sight;
Poising his beauties on a rolling cloud,
With outstretch'd arm and bowstring twanging loud
And arrows singing as they pierce the air;
With tinkling sandals, and with flaming hair;
As if he paused upon his bounding way,
And loosen'd his fierce arrows — all in play;
But like that angry god, in blazing light
Bursting from space, and standing in his might —
Reveal'd in his omnipotent array,
Apollo of the skies, and deity of day,
In god-like wrath piercing his myriad-foe
With quenchless shafts, that lighten as they go!
— Not like that god, when up in air he springs,
With brightening mantle and with sunny wings,
When heavenly music murmurs from his strings —
A buoyant vision — an imbodied dream
Of dainty Poesy — and boyishly supreme!
— Not the thin spirit waked by young Desire,
Gazing o'er heaven until her thoughts take fire,
Panting and breathless; in her heart's wild trance,
Bright, shapeless forms, the godlings of Romance!
— Not that Apollo — not resembling him
Of silver bow and woman's nerveless limb —
But man — all man! the monarch of the wild!
— Not the faint spirit that corrupting smiled
On soft, lascivious Greece, but Nature's child,
Arrested in the chase, with piercing eye
Fix'd in its airy lightning on the sky,
Where some red bird goes languid, eddying, drooping,
Pierced by his arrows in her swiftest stooping.
Thus springing to the skies, a boy will stand
With arms uplifted and unconscious hand
Tracing his arrow in its loftiest flight,
And watch it kindling, as it cleaves the light
Of worlds unseen but by the Indian's sight —
His robe and hair upon the wind, at length —
A creature of the hills, all grace and strength,
All muscle and all flame — his eager eye
Fix'd on one spot, as if he could descry
His bleeding victim nestling in the sky!
— Not that Apollo! — not the heavenly one,
Voluptuous spirit of a setting sun —
But this, the offspring of young Solitude,
Child of the holy spot, where none intrude
But genii of the torrent, cliff, and wood —
Nurslings of cloud and storm, the desert's fiery brood.