My Sun, where art thou going? Stay to see
How passing beautiful is she I love.
My Sun, that round and round the world dost move,
Hast thou seen any beautiful as she?
My Sun, that hast the whole world travelled round,
One beautiful as she thou hast not found!
Next to his lady's laughter, the South Italian Greek worships the sun. It is the only feature in nature to which he pays much heed. In common with other forms of modern Greek the Calabrian possesses the beautiful periphrase for sunset, o íglio vasiléggui ( ὁ ἥλιος βασιλεύει). Language, which is altogether a kind of poetry, has not anything more profoundly poetic. There is a brisk, lively ring in the "Sun up!" of the American Far West; but an intellectual Atlantic flows between it and the Greek ascription of kingship, of heroship, to the Day-giver at the end of his course—
Wie herrlich die Sonne dort untergeht,
So stirbt ein Held! Anbetungswürdig!
When we were young, were not our hearts stirred to their inmost depths by this?