Orphic Hymn 25

To Proteus

Proteus I call, whom Fate decrees to keep The keys which lock the chambers of the deep; First-born, by whose illustrious pow’r alone All Nature’s principles were clearly shown. Pure sacred matter to transmute is thine, And decorate with forms all-various and divine. All-honour’d, prudent, whose sagacious mind Knows all that was and is of ev’ry kind, With all that shall be in succeeding time, So vast thy wisdom, wondrous and sublime: For all things Nature first to thee consign’d And in thy essence omniform confin’d. O father, to thy mystics’ rites attend, And grant a blessed life a prosp’rous end.