The Sun-Worshipper

As a wild comet through the night she hies,Her face bent towards the temple of the sun,With golden hair that on the darkness liesLike break of dawn when daylight, scarce begun,Meanders into flame whose flashes runAlong the lower skies.

Soon as the sun lifts up the morning hazeShe rushes towards him; sinks unto the groundAnd, clasping the all-shining Presence, praysIn his first beams: again her god is found;The startled shadows that her heart surroundAre dizzy in his rays.

‘Thee I adore, O Sun! this heart is thine!The youth who blindly claims its ecstasySeeks not thy temple, honours not thy shrine;He kneels not, utters not his vows to thee,Who all the worlds beyond this world canst see,And mak’st all things divine.’

The sunflowers turn to heaven as still she kneels;Shall then her heart its coming vow deplore?Not uttered yet, all utterance it reveals,And she restrains her ecstasy no more:Her burning lips the hasty vow outpourWhich her heart-trouble seals.

‘Never, O Sun! till sinking in the westThou risest where thy wondrous setting spreads,While all who love thee slumber in thy rest,Shall he, who proudly in thy presence treads,Enthrall me in the light his beauty sheds,Or wed me to his breast!’

Silence has tongues; she hears a sister say,‘List to the voice of thy companion-mind!Thy love is still the same as yesterday;It has not passed, it only lags behind,And thou art lonely as the wistful windThou meet’st upon the way.’

Yet she repeats her vow, her heart in pain,To draw some love from heaven, as from the wellWhose radiant springs she once craved not in vain:But ebbing hope allures her by its spellTo past despair, on other days to dwell,—And suffer them again.

Across the hills of heliotrope she creeps,Or winds within the many-shadowed wolds,Till once again the sun her pathway sweeps,And from her weary feet the way withholds;The sacred flowers embrace her in their folds;From dawn to dawn she sleeps.

She sleeps; so still, not even her shadow veers,Save when from side to side the moonflood roves;But in sky-dreams the sun to her appears,Yet with the visage of the one she loves;—All through her sleep in phantom light he moves,And still that face he bears.

She sleeps, and with the beaming of a brideBeholds that face; ah! never to be wed!Yet why a tear, no sorrow shall betide:Though distant borne, his rays on her are shed;Her soul, along his way of glory sped,Shall in his light abide.

She wakes up with the sun, but in his riseSees the rich twilight of her love-dream wane:Day seems to sink in the deserted skies,Whose broken, many-coloured beams remainAs of her dream whose night comes back again;’Twas dawn had closed her eyes.

The cloud-slopes blossom still, but cold and lone;Down them she floated in those heavenly dreams,And still the veil that o’er her slumbers shoneHangs gold-wrought in the fervour of those beams.She kneels while watching the last fading gleamsO’er the grey twilight thrown.

With speechless lips she questions the chill blaze:Behold the sun returns; that brighter flushWere surely day? Yet she mistrusts her gazeThough the light widens and with lordly rushThe sun bursts forth in morning’s youthful blushAnd floods the heaven with rays.

Trembling she sees the paleness of her faceIn those white clouds which now the sun surround,Who doth in heaven his spectral way retrace.Behold, the days brought back, the hours unwound,The angry sun unto the zenith boundAnd the pale moon replace!

Perplexed, all lost, she staggers to the heightWhere the twelve pillars in their beauty shine,The temple circling in the blessed light;There prostrate doth she o’er her vow repine;But fears to meet the arbiter divineWho banishes the night.

From the lone steps at length she looks above:Behold, the face is there that filled her dreams;The youth adored, triumphant o’er her love,There radiant shines amid descending beams;His lustrous hair in the rich sunshine streams,With golden lights inwove.

She lifts her arms, she falls upon the faceShe loved in heaven; her yearning heart, too blest,Doth in deep sobs its erring way retrace.All passion weeps, while gathers in her breastA bliss that bears her spirit to its restIn that divine embrace.