Explore "The Masque of Pandora" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
HERMES (putting on his sandals.) / Much must he toil who serves the Immortal Gods, / And I, who am their herald, most of all. / No rest have I, nor respite. I no sooner / Unclasp the winged sandals from my feet, / Than I again must clasp them, and depart / Upon some foolish errand. But to-day / The errand is not foolish. Never yet / With greater joy did I obey the summons / That sends me earthward. I will fly so swiftly / That my caduceus in the whistling air / Shall make a sound like the Pandaean pipes, / Cheating the shepherds; for to-day I go, / Commissioned by high-thundering Zeus, to lead / A maiden to Prometheus, in his tower, / And by my cunning arguments persuade him / To marry her. What mischief lies concealed / In this design I know not; but I know / Who thinks of marrying hath already taken / One step upon the road to penitence. / Such embassies delight me. Forth I launch / On the sustaining air, nor fear to fall / Like Icarus, nor swerve aside like him / Who drove amiss Hyperion's fiery steeds. / I sink, I fly! The yielding element / Folds itself round about me like an arm, / And holds me as a mother holds her child.