And blessed her and her mother where they sat—
Her by the imposition of bright hands,
The Earth with kisses. Then the Spring would go,
Abashed with bliss,—decorous in the face
Of love parental. But the Earth stood up,
And held her there; and, these encircling, came
All kind of happy shapes that wander space,
Brightening the air. And they two sang like gods
Under the answering heavens."
We think that the ancients, if they had seriously reflected upon the important part played by the sun in the economy of nature; how it is the heart, and spring, and inner power of every movement and manifestation of life; how it is, as Sir David Brewster says, the centre and soul of our world, the lamp that lights it, the fire that heats it, the magnet that guides and controls it, the fountain of colour, which gives its azure to the sky, its verdure to the fields, its rainbow-hues to the gay world of flowers, and the purple light of love to the marble cheek of youth and beauty;—we think that the ancients, if they had thought upon, or had known, all this, would not have given the earth a chief place in our system. And that they did so is all the more strange when we remember that they attributed to the world a soul (the "soul of the world" is a favourite idea with the great philosophers of antiquity), and looked upon the planets as living creatures.