HYMN TO THE SUN.
O fountain of beauty, of gladness and light,
Whose pathway is set in the infinite hight,
Whose light hath no shadow, whose day hath no night!
We know not thy birthplace, O wonderful one!
We count not the ages through which thou hast run,
But we render thee praises, O life-giving Sun.
All day the glad Earth in thy loving embrace,
Arrayed by thy bounty in garments of grace,
Lifts up to thy glances her beautiful face.
And at night, when her children need silence and rest,
With the light of her starry-eyed sisterhood blest,
She sleeps like a bride on thy cherishing breast.
When the skylark springs up at the coming of morn,
When the golden fringed curtains of night are withdrawn,
Then blushing with beauty the day is new born.
And the pulses of Nature in harmony bound,
To the waves of thy glory which move without sound,
And sweep unimpeded through spaces profound.
Ay, the life-tide that leaps in the bird or the flower—
The rainbow that gleams through the drops of the shower—
O wonderful artist! are born of thy power.
And the rush of the whirlwind, the roar of the deep,
The cataract’s thunder, the avalanche-sweep,
Are thy forces majestic, aroused from their sleep.
Shall we wonder, that filled with devotion untold,
The awe-stricken Parsee adored thee of old,
Nor dreamed that One greater thy glory controlled?