[1] By this image the Platonists expressed the middle state of the soul
between sensible and intellectual existence.
FROM THE HIGH PRIEST OF APOLLO TO A VIRGIN OF DELPHI.[1]
_Cum digno digna_.....
SULPICIA.
"Who is the maid, with golden hair,
"With eye of fire, and foot of air,
"Whose harp around my altar swells,
"The sweetest of a thousand shells?"
'Twas thus the deity, who treads
The arch of heaven, and proudly sheds
Day from his eyelids--thus he spoke,
As through my cell his glories broke.
Aphelia is the Delphic fair[2]
With eyes of fire and golden hair,
Aphelia's are the airy feet.
And hers the harp divinely sweet;
For foot so light has never trod
The laurelled caverns of the god.
Nor harp so soft hath ever given
A sigh to earth or hymn to heaven.
"Then tell the virgin to unfold,
"In looser pomp, her locks of gold,
"And bid those eyes more fondly shine
"To welcome down a Spouse Divine;
"Since He, who lights the path of years--
"Even from the fount of morning's tears
"To where his setting splendors burn
"Upon the western sea-maid's urn--
"Doth not, in all his course, behold
"Such eyes of fire, such hair of gold.
"Tell her, he comes, in blissful pride,
"His lip yet sparkling with the tide
"That mantles in Olympian bowls,--
"The nectar of eternal souls!
"For her, for her he quits the skies,
"And to her kiss from nectar flies.
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