I
CONQUEROR! what have you seen in the heavens?
Star-dust is in your hair.
Say, have you woken the sleeping thunder
And taken it unaware?
Come on the storm as a wild beast crouching,
And mocked at it in its lair?
Ridden the wind as a riotous charger,
Your hand in his mane entwined,
As a new unbroken Pegasus,
That a master had divined?
A boast for a man to bring down from heaven,
“I have bridled the wild East wind!”
Gazed in the mirror of unshed dew-ponds,
Bathed in the rivers of rain?
Caught at the meteor’s sparks in passing,
And flung them to earth for grain?
Dropped in the wake of the scattered handfuls
To the morning earth again?
How have you raced with the car of Apollo,
A trial of strength indeed,
He in his golden chariot standing
And lashing his golden steed,
You with your glimmering wings of silver
And unconquerable speed?
What of the sirens that dwell in the heavens
In a palace of cloud and air?
As a lover of nymphs inviolate,
Of sirens with rainbow hair,
Have you dwelt like a new Odysseus
With the sirens of the air?
Speak! have you guarded Diana’s uprising
From a couch of mist and sheen?
Speak! have you watched Diana’s disrobing
After her reign as queen?
Speak! for your eyes are eloquent
With the mysteries they have seen.
And your feet, which have trod in unlaboured fields,
Are with wingèd sandals shod,
And the hawthorn stick at the touch of your hand
Has turned to a wingèd rod,
And your eyes and lips are burnished gold
With the kiss of the bright sun-god.
II
Son of the morning, son of the daybreak,
Son of the stars and sky,
Son of the clean untrodden places,
Son of the air am I.