Mother of gods, thou Wife of starry Heaven, 25
Farewell! be thou propitious, and be given
A happy life for this brief melody,
Nor thou nor other songs shall unremembered be.

***

HOMER’S HYMN TO MINERVA.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition; dated 1818.]

I sing the glorious Power with azure eyes,
Athenian Pallas! tameless, chaste, and wise,
Tritogenia, town-preserving Maid,
Revered and mighty; from his awful head
Whom Jove brought forth, in warlike armour dressed, 5
Golden, all radiant! wonder strange possessed
The everlasting Gods that Shape to see,
Shaking a javelin keen, impetuously
Rush from the crest of Aegis-bearing Jove;
Fearfully Heaven was shaken, and did move 10
Beneath the might of the Cerulean-eyed;
Earth dreadfully resounded, far and wide;
And, lifted from its depths, the sea swelled high
In purple billows, the tide suddenly
Stood still, and great Hyperion’s son long time 15
Checked his swift steeds, till, where she stood sublime,
Pallas from her immortal shoulders threw
The arms divine; wise Jove rejoiced to view. 
Child of the Aegis-bearer, hail to thee,
Nor thine nor others’ praise shall unremembered be. 20

***

HOMER’S HYMN TO VENUS.

[Published by Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862; dated 1818.]

[VERSES 1-55, WITH SOME OMISSIONS.]

Muse, sing the deeds of golden Aphrodite,
Who wakens with her smile the lulled delight
Of sweet desire, taming the eternal kings
Of Heaven, and men, and all the living things
That fleet along the air, or whom the sea, 5
Or earth, with her maternal ministry,
Nourish innumerable, thy delight
All seek ...  O crowned Aphrodite! 
Three spirits canst thou not deceive or quell:—­
Minerva, child of Jove, who loves too well 10
Fierce war and mingling combat, and the fame
Of glorious deeds, to heed thy gentle flame. 
Diana ... golden-shafted queen,
Is tamed not by thy smiles; the shadows green
Of the wild woods, the bow, the... 15
And piercing cries amid the swift pursuit
Of beasts among waste mountains,—­such delight
Is hers, and men who know and do the right. 
Nor Saturn’s first-born daughter, Vesta chaste,
Whom Neptune and Apollo wooed the last, 20
Such was the will of aegis-bearing Jove;
But sternly she refused the ills of Love,
And by her mighty Father’s head she swore
An oath not unperformed, that evermore
A virgin she would live mid deities 25
Divine:  her father, for such gentle ties
Renounced, gave glorious gifts—­thus in his hall
She sits and feeds luxuriously.  O’er all
In every fane, her honours first arise
From men—­the eldest of Divinities. 30