THE RITE OF SOL
Shrined in exceeding glory, eremite,
The tortoise skies in sombre carapaces
Await the expression and the hour of birth
In silence through the adamantine girth.
I rose in glory, gathered of the foam.
The sea’s flower folded, charioting me risen
Where dawn‘s rose stole from its pearlvglimmering home,
And heaven laughed, and earth: and mine old prison,
The seas that lay beneath the mighty dome,
Shone with my splendour.
Light did first bedizen
Earth with its clusters of fiery dew and spray,
When I looked forth and cried, “ It is the day!”
The stars are dewdrops on my bosom’s space;
The sun and moon are glances through my lashes,
Long, tender rays of night ; my subtle face
Burns through the sky-dusk, lightens, fills, and flashes
With solemn joy and laughter οἱlove; the grace
Of all my body swaying stoops and dashes
Swift to the daisy’s dawn of love: and swiftest,
0 Spirit of man, when unto me thou liftest!
Dawn shakes the molten fire of my delight
From the fine flower and fragrance of my tresses!
Sunset bids darken all my body’s light,
Mixing its music with the sad caresses
Of the whole world: I wheel in Wingless flight
Through lampless space, the starless wildernesses!
Beyond the universal bounds that roll,
There is the shrine and image of my soul.
I am Nature and God : I reign, I am, alone.
None odzer may abide apart: they perish,
Drawn into me, into my being grown.
None other bosom is. to bear, to nourish,
To be: the heart of all beneath my zone
Of blue and gold is scarlet-bright to cherish
My own life’s being, that is, and is not other ;
For I am God and Nature and thy Motherr
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