A MEDITATION ON THE SUN

Come, let us think upon the great that came Our spiritual solar-kings, whose fame Is quenchless in the lands of mental light, High planets in the vast historic game: Youths from the sky, they came in splendid flight. We hold to them as to our day and night, And by them measure out our moments here, Our greatness, littleness, and wrong and right. For like the sun, we carry yesteryears Within our wallets: all the ancient fears And scorns and triumphs woven in our cloaks, Our tall plumes bought with some lost race’s tears. Oh Sun, I wish that all the nations bright You ever looked upon were in my sight, That I had stood up in your royal car With your eye-rays to search out field and height: To see young David, leading forth his sheep, The Christ Child on the Hill of Nazareth sleep, To watch proud Dante climb the stranger’s stairs, To see the ocean round Columbus leap. And beauty absolute man’s heart has known In those old hills where the Greek blood was sown, They named you young Apollo in that day And served you well, and loved your chariot-throne. Would I had looked on Venice in her prime. And long had watched the prayerful Gothic time When Notre Dame arose, a mystery there In wicked good old Paris and its grime! II Oh light, light, light! Oh Sun your light is good. You stir the sap of garden, field and wood, Of men and ages. And your deeds are fair, And by this light, is God’s love understood. So let us think upon Creation’s days And Great Jehovah Moses came to praise:— The God the Hebrews said excelled the sun, To whom all psalms are due, who made the ways The sun shall follow till he burns no more Till he is cold and clinkered to the core. Praise God, and not the sun too much, my soul, The God behind the sun we must adore. III Oh Sun, that yet will my spring thoughts astound, How often this lone mendicant you found Stripped in your presence of all earthly things. A happy dervish whirling round and round. You were his tree of incense and his feast, You were his wagon and his harnessed beast, His singing brother, yet his tyrant hard, With whip and spur and shout that never ceased. He thought of Freedom that rides round with you Healing the nations with a crystal dew, The comrade of your car, with Science there, Making the ways of men forever new. Would we might lift a mighty battle-cry. Nations and mendicants, and shake your sky: Would that you caught us singing as one man That song I sang when begging days began Hearing it in every beam on high: “Man’s spirit-darkness shall forever die.”