Io triumphe! Lo, thy certain art, My crafty sire, releases us at length! False Minos now may knit his baffled brows, And in the labyrinth by thee devised His brutish horns in angry search may toss The Minotaur,-but thou and I are free! See where it lies, one dark spot on the breast Of plains far-shining in the long-lost day, Thy glory and our prison! Either hand Crete, with her hoary mountains, olive-clad In twinkling silver, 'twixt the vineyard rows, Divides the glimmering seas. On Ida's top The sun, discovering first an earthly throne, Sits down in splendor: lucent vapors rise From folded glens among the awaking hills, Expand their hovering films, and touch, and spread In airy planes beneath us, hearths of air Whereon the morning burns her hundred fires.

Take thou thy way between the cloud and wave, O Daedalus, my father, steering forth To friendly Samos, or the Carian shore! But me the spaces of the upper heaven Attract, the height, the freedom, and the joy. For now, from that dark treachery escaped, And tasting power which was the lust of youth, Whene'er the white blades of the sea-gull's wings Flashed round the headland, or the barbéd files Of cranes returning clanged across the sky, No half-way flight, no errand incomplete I purpose. Not, as once in dreams, with pain I mount, with fear and huge exertion hold Myself a moment, ere the sickening fall Breaks in the shock of waking. Launched, at last, Uplift on powerful wings, I veer and float Past sunlit isles of cloud, that dot with light The boundless archipelago of sky. I fan the airy silence till it starts In rustling whispers, swallowed up as soon; I warm the chilly ether with my breath; I with the beating of my heart make glad The desert blue. Have I not raised myself Unto this height, and shall I cease to soar? The curious eagles wheel about my path: With sharp and questioning eyes they stare at me, With harsh, impatient screams they menace me, Who, with these vans of cunning workmanship Broad-spread, adventure on their high domain,- Now mine, as well. Henceforth, ye clamorous birds, I claim the azure empire of the air! Henceforth I breast the current of the morn, Between her crimson shores: a star, henceforth, Upon the crawling dwellers of the earth My forehead shines. The steam of sacred blood, The smoke of burning flesh on altars laid, Fumes of the temple-wine, and sprinkled myrrh, Shall reach my palate ere they reach the Gods.

Nay, am not I a God? What other wing, If not a God's, could in the rounded sky Hang thus in solitary poise? What need, Ye proud Immortals, that my balanced plumes Should grow, like yonder eagle's, from the nest? It may be, ere my crafty father's line Sprang from Erectheus, some artificer, Who found you roaming wingless on the hills, Naked, asserting godship in the dearth Of loftier claimants, fashioned you the same. Thence did you seize Olympus; thence your pride Compelled the race of men, your slaves, to tear The temple from the mountain's marble womb, To carve you shapes more beautiful than they, To sate your idle nostrils with the reek Of gums and spices, heaped on jewelled gold.