Watching at daybreak the bright sun come forth
I asked the assembled host of heaven and earth—
Your radiant looks are kindled by that glowing orb’s warm beams
That turns to rippling silver your flowing streams;
That sun it is that clothes you in these ornaments of light,
And whose torch burns to keep your concourse bright.
Your roses and rose-gardens are pictures of Paradise
Where the Scripture of The Sun paints its device;
Scarlet the mantle of the flower, and emerald of the tree,
Green and red sylphs of your consistory;
Your tall pavilion, the blue sky. Is fringed with tasselled gold
When round the horizons ruddy clouds are rolled,
And when into evening’s goblet your rose-tinted nectar flows
How lovely the twilight’s soft vermilion glows!
Your station is exalted, and your splendour: over all
Your creatures light lies thick, a dazzling pall;
To your magnificence the dawn is one high hymn of praise,
No rag of night lurks on it in that sun’s blaze.
And I—I too inhabit this abode of light; but why
Is the star burned out that rules my destiny?
Why chained in the dark, past reach of any ray,
Ill-faring and ill-fated and ill-doing must I stay? |
Speaking, I heard a voice from somewhere sound,
From heaven’s balcony or near the ground—
You are creation’s gardener, flowers live only in your seeing,
By your light hangs my being or not-being;
All beauty is in you: I am the tapestry of your soul;
I am its key, but you are Love’s own scroll.
The load that would not leave me you have lifted from my shoulder,
You are all my chaotic work’s re-moulder.
If I exist, it is only as a pensioner of the sun,
Needing no aid from whom your spark burns on;
My garden would turn wilderness if the sun should fail,
This sojourn of delight a prison’s pale.
Oh you entangled in the snare of longing and unrest,
Still ignorant of a thing so manifest—
Dullard, who should be proud, and still by self-contempt enslaved
Bear in your brain illusion deep engraved—
If you would weigh your worth at its true rate,
No longer would ill-faring or ill-doing be your fate! |
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