“What is yon bright object?”
“It is the ‘Temple of the Sun.’”
The speed of thought brings them to its full view. They swoop down; and pause in riveted contemplation of the sublime pile.
What a house, built by supposed hands! It is a structure from masses of the purest crystal; a mile long; two-thirds of a mile broad; a half-mile high to its eaves. A steeple, itself of a mile’s height and of beautiful proportions, towers with a superb aplomb a mile and a half above its front base. It is radiant with a whitish internal illumination, that shoots its apex of light upward to the dark empyrean. Over a central point of the temple, a third distance from its rear, a lofty dome uplifts in grand majesty its imposing symmetry, and from which hangs pendent within, a vast globular light resembling and sacred to the sun, permeating and illuming with its golden rays the mighty mass. The double-tinted splendor of the tout ensemble, thrilled with rapture even an immortal soul! Above the dome, and from a staff like the lightning’s streak, floated a tri-colored oriflamme—a rainbow flag.
“One tint was of the sunbeam’s dyes,
“One the blue depth of seraph’s eyes,
“One, the pure spirit’s veil of white
“Had robed in radiance of its light;
“The three so mingled did beseem
“The texture of a heavenly dream.”