Phoebus for thee too, Hyacinth, design’d
A place among the gods, had fate been kind:
Yet this he gave: as oft as wintry rains
Are pass’d, and vernal breezes soothe the plains,
From the green turf a purple flower you rise,
And with your fragrant breath perfume the skies.
You, when alive, were Phoebus’ darling boy;
In you he placed his hopes and fix’d his joy:
Their god the Delphic priests consult in vain.
Eurotas now he loves, and Sparta’s plain:
His hands the use of bow and harp forget,
And hold the dogs, or bear the corded net;
O’er hanging cliffs swift he pursues the game;
Each hour his pleasure, each augments his flame.
The midday sun now shone with equal light
Between the past and the succeeding light;
They strip, then, smooth’d with suppling oil, essay
To pitch the rounded quoit, their wonted play.
A well-poised disk first hasty Phoebus threw;
It cleft the air, and whistled as it flew;
It reach’d the mark, a most surprising length,
Which spoke an equal share of art and strength.
Scarce was it fallen, when, with too eager hand,
Young Hyacinth ran to snatch it from the sand;
But the curs’d orb, which met a stony soil,
Flew in his face with violent recoil.
Both faint, both pale and breathless, now appear,
The boy with pain, the anxious god with fear.
He ran, and raised him bleeding from the ground,
Chafes his cold limbs, and wipes the fatal wound;
Then herbs of noblest juice in vain applies;
The wound is mortal, and his skill defies.
As in a water’d garden’s blooming walk,
When some rude hand has bruised its tender stalk,
A fading lily droops its languid head,
And bends to earth, its life and beauty fled;
So Hyacinth, with head reclined, decays,
And, sickening, now no more his charms displays.
“Oh, thou art gone, my boy,” Apollo cried,
“Defrauded of thy youth in all its pride!
Thou, once my joy, art all my sorrow now;
And to my guilty hand my grief I owe.
Yet from myself I might the fault remove,
Unless to sport and play a fault should prove,
Oh could I for thee, or but with thee, die!
But cruel fates to me that power deny:
Yet on my tongue thou shalt for ever dwell;
Thy name my lyre shall sound, my verse shall tell;
And to a flower transform’d, unheard of yet,
Stamp’d on thy leaves, my cries thou shalt repeat:
The time shall come, prophetic I foreknow,
When, join’d to thee, a mighty chief shall grow,
And with my plaints his name thy leaf shall show.”
While Phoebus thus the laws of fate reveal’d,
Behold, the blood which stain’d the verdant field
Is blood no longer; but a flower full blown,
Far brighter than the Tyrian scarlet, shone:
A lily’s form it took; its purple hue
Was all that made a difference to the view:
Nor stopp’d he here: the god upon its leaves
The sad expression of his sorrow weaves;
And to this hour the mournful purple wears
Ai, Ai, inscribed in funeral characters.
Nor are the Spartans, who so much are famed
For virtue, of their Hyacinth ashamed,
But still, with pompous wo and solemn state,
The Hyacinthian feasts they yearly celebrate.