Ion in the Delphic Dawn by Euripides Lyrics

Apollo driving horse-drawn dawn
Veers over earth, on his trail-blazed arc,
With fire that drives the stars away
Into the sacred dark.
The trackless peaks of mount Parnassus
Are floodlit in the blue
As beacons to receive for us this day
The wheeling sun we pray for.
O things of old forever new!
The desert incense rises to the rafters
Of the Sunlord. The holy-throated priestess,
Sits there on the gods' tripod, towers
On the seat of truthful power,
Ready to be how Apollo speaks,
The voice of one crying across the wilderness,
Crying to the Greeks!

O hallowed be Thy flame, Apollo!
And you, his Delphic servants, go
To silver-haired Castalia,
That living spring where men drink genius down.
Go, purify your hair in those pure waters
Which a god consecrated to his arts.
Then make way to the temple with your gifts
And in god-fearing silence stand.
Guard the goodness of your lips
That you may be well-spoken, speak pure omen
To all who crave the oracle's commands.
But I, as I have done since childhood,
Shall do the services of a glad child:
With brooms of holy laurel boughs
I'll sweep Apollo's entryway,
Bring waterdrops to wet his blessed earth.
And as I bow to him, so with my bow
I shall bring down the birds' unholy hordes
That foul the sacred offerings.
I, motherless and fatherless from birth,
Honor these shrines with all the love of a son,
Apollo's shrines that raised me as their own.