THE SERAPHS’ HOLIDAY.
There is a year when all the stars, which throng
The blue abysses of eternity,
Back to the stations, whence their march began,
Have rolled. The wondrous season passes not
In Heaven uncelebrated; but with pomp,
And dance, and song, and gorgeous festivals,
The happy people mark its slow return.
Then all the mighty Seraphim, who rule
By Allah’s will the starry satrapies
Of the Universe, with joyful hearts receive
Permission to revisit once again
The golden streets of Paradise, the groves,
And fields, and streams, and shady palaces
Of their nativity. Upon the morn
Of their return, soon as the eastern wind
Begins to fan the innumerable palms,
Amid whose waving branches glittering stand
The beatific mansions, straight the walls,
Smaragdine domes and minarets, which grace
Or fortify the blest metropolis,
Are thickly lined with eager faces, set
With dark angelic eyes, whose glances pierce
Interminably far the rosy veils
Of pure celestial air, wherein no mote
Or vapor floats to intercept the view.
Ere long, above the horizon’s verge appears
The expected pomp. East, West, and North and South,
Along the ancient thoroughfares, which lead
From Paradise through spaces infinite,
Besprinkled o’er with starry Cyclades,
Down to the fiery palaces, wherein
The solar Seraphs hold their sway, it comes—
A long array of chariots superb,
Harnessed to sun-engendered steeds, whose veins
Are filled with fluid fire, the succulence
Of the Heliacal pastures where they graze.
Proudly the planetary Sultans rein
Their haughty yokes, which underneath the shade
Of solar gonfalons advance, their feet
Unto the sound of lordly harmonies
Uplifting. Within the eternal gates,
Through wingëd throngs, o’er star-paved streets they ride,
And by the Stream of Life, shadowed with palms,
Unyoke their steeds, fettered with links of gold
Infrangible and bright, to graze the banks;
Then laving in the flood their giant limbs,
They haste unto the glad festivities.