THE SUN
Light, on the far faint planets that attend me!
Light! But for me-the fury and the fire.
My white-hot maelstroms, the red storms that rend me
Can yield them still the harvest they desire,
I kiss with light their sunward-lifted faces.
With dew-drenched flowers I crown their dusky brows.
They praise me, lightly, from their pleasant places.
Their birds belaud me, lightly, from their boughs.
And men, on lute and lyre, have breathed their pleasure.
They have watched Apollo's golden chariot roll;
Hymned his bright wheels, but never mine that measure
A million leagues of flame from Pole to Pole.
Like harbour-lights the stars grow wide before me,
I draw my worlds ten thousand leagues a day.
Their far blue seas like April eyes adore me.
They follow, dreaming, on my soundless way.
How should they know, who wheel around my burning,
What torments bore them, or what power am I,
I, that with all those worlds around me turning,
Sail, every hour, from sky to unplumbed sky?
My planets, these live embers of my passion,
These children of my hurricanes of flame,
Flung thro' the night, for midnight to refashion,
Praise, and forget, the splendour whence they came.