Et soles melius nitent.
Restore, Great Sir, your country's light;
For, as in spring the sun is softly bright,
So, when on us thy countenance's beams arise,
Fairer days appear, and smile o'er the skies[[17-1]].
Homer, too, often uses light and fire as metaphors, which are in some instances quite of a Biblical type. Take, for instance, the following lines that occur in the eleventh book of the Iliad:—
As the red star shows his sanguine fires
Through the dark clouds, and now in night retires:
Thus through the ranks appear'd the godlike man,
Plunged in the rear, or blazing in the van;