Is sweet as May, full of delight,
Unclouded sunshine, golden light.
Mary, who had been called Maris Stella, the morning star, gradually assumed the symbol of the all-conquering sun. Suso, in one of his poems, still clinging to the older epithet, makes use of a metaphor corresponding to the breaking of the sun through clouds. "When the radiant morning star, Mary, broke through the suffering of thy darkened heart, it was saluted with gladness and with these words: Greeting, beautiful, rising morning star, from the fathomless depths of all loving hearts!" But he also calls Mary: "Thou dazzling mirror of the Eternal Sun!" And his Biography contains the following beautiful passage: "And his eyes were opened and he fell on his knees, saluting the rising morning star, the tender queen of the light of heaven; as the little birds in the summer time salute the day, so he saluted the luminous bringer of the eternal day, and he spoke his salutation not mechanically, but with a sweet low singing of his soul." This is pure and genuine nature-worship mingled with the worship of Mary.
So much for Suso. In Goethe's Faust, Doctor Marianus prays:
In thy tent of azure blue,
Queen supremely reigning,
Let me now thy secret view,
Vision high obtaining.
It is obvious that here the Queen of Heaven and the sun are conceived as one. Eichendorff makes use of the metaphor:
The sun is smiling languidly