LET orb be wedded unto orb!--let light
Engender in the wombs of fiery clouds
In flashing spirals scarring the dead Night,
With tongues of argent fire and crimson shrouds.
You bear the seed of Worlds; from you shall spring
A Universe through roaring cycles spun
Round him whose bulk enormous crowns him king
And master of all vassal orbs, the Sun!
You golden worlds or white, you gelid Moons,
Each in your mountant orbit king or queen,
In midnights plunged or soaring in your noons,
Accoutred in glory male, or virgin sheen,
Awake! awake! the dark unbars her gate!
Burst forth like gems from Death's titanic tomb!
The joyous zenith and mute nadir wait,
Vessels of Life reborn, to yield you room.
Rocks and their garnered ores shall form your flesh,
And you shall pant in flowing seas of Air;
You shall have boon of Waters, salt and fresh,
And gift of godlike Fire to make you fair.
Afloat in splendour, panoplied in light--the arch-pontifical Sun!
He shakes his threshing, intolerable mane of flames, his face bans darkness and makes a burning void in his domains. He pours his lustihood and power upon the joyous spheres. His rays transmute all things. Through the dancing infant host his Magnificat is upborne on the breath of his desire.
Triumphant rolls his paean. He casts from him his tempests of solar melody, vibrant and far-winged.
SONG OF THE SUN
EMBATTLED life in living light immerst,
I shed the glory of my fatherhood!
These shafts shall quell the surgent dark and burst
The walls of night that pent my circling brood.
Rolled twyfold in each shining cirque and arch,
My jewelled court of splendour ring on ring,
Salutes me down my firmamental march,
Hailing me sire, all-quickener, lord and king!
I fling eternal largesses of light
And warmth, and wave my torch within the deep,--
Dance! purple planet-children, in my sight
Around Creation's golden core! Go sweep
Within this blaze of winnowed flames, you sons
And daughters wing'd with veils of rain and fire,
Hold high your mirrored Moons!--you myrmidons
Of meteors robed with flame--you comets dire,
Far-wandering lights, go seek my brother spheres
And yonder orbs, now basking span on span;
And bear me tidings if their ripened years
Have made them joyous with the face of Man.
Emblazoned with crests of lustre like the Sun, the Earth-orb wanders singing through her rounds.
She flings her arms and tresses of Fire to the stars, a maenad in the planetary dance.
The cold voids of hungry space drink up her ardours. She glows redly; the Fires retreat into her heart and her form is clothed with lava as with the Sea. Now is she muffled in her new-born clouds and the rains struggle through her fervent Airs.