Lament over the Sun's death deprived of Hellenic myth
And now, O shaken from thine antique throne,
And sunken from thy cœrule empery,
Now that the red glare of thy fall is blown.

In smoke and flame about the windy sky,-
Where are the wailing voices that should meet

From hill, stream, grove, and all of mortal shape
Who tread thy gifts, in vineyards as stray feet

Pulp th' globèd weight of juic'd Iberia's grape?
Where is the threne o' the sea?

And why not dirges thee

The wind, that sings to himself as he makes stride
Lonely and terrible on the Andean height?

Where is the Naiad 'mid her sworded sedge?
The Nymph wan-glimmering by her wan fount's verge?
The Dryad at timid gaze by the wood-side?

The Oread jutting light

On one up-strainèd sole from the rock-ledge?

The Nereid tip-toe on the scud o' the surge,

With whistling tresses dank athwart her face,
And all her figure poised in lithe Circéan grace,-
Why withers their lament?

Their tresses tear-besprent,

Have they sighed hence with trailing garment-hem?
O sweet, O sad, O fair!

I catch your flying hair,

Draw your eyes down to me, and dream on them!

ས.

The Poet like Orpheus widowed of the ancient myths

A space, and they fleet from me.

Must ye fade

O old, essential candours, ye who made

The earth a living and a radiant thing—

And leave her corpse in our strain'd, cheated arms?
Lo, even thus, when Song with chorded charms

Draws from dull death his lost Eurydice,

Lo ever thus, even at consúmmating,

Even in the swooning minute that claims her his,
Even as he trembles to the impassioned kiss

Of reincarnate Beauty, his control

Clasps the cold body, and foregoes the soul!

Whatso looks lovelily

Is but the rainbow on life's weeping rain.
Why have we longings of immortal pain,
And all we long for-mortal? Woe is me,

And all our chants but chaplet some decay,
As mine this vanishing-nay, vanished Day.
The Poet denies the ungodding of the Sun

The low sky-line dusks to a leaden hue,

No rift disturbs the heavy shade and chill,

Save one, where the charred firmament lets through

The scorching dazzle of Heaven; 'gainst which the hill,
Out-flattened sombrely,

Stands black-as life against eternity.

Against eternity?

A rifting light in me

Burns through the leaden broodings of the mind:

O blessèd Sun, thy state

Uprisen or derogate

Dafts me no more with doubt: I seek and find.

VI.

The Sun and the Dying God

If with exultant tread

Thou foot the Eastern sea,
Or like a golden bee

Sting th' West to angry red,

Thou dost image, thou dost follow
That King-Maker of Creation,

Who, ere Hellas hailed Apollo,

Gave thee, angel-god, thy station;

Thou art of Him a type memorial.

Like Him thou hang'st in dreadful pomp of blood
Upon thy Western rood;

And His stained brow did vail like thine to-night,
Yet lift once more Its light,

And, risen, again departed from our ball;—
But when It set on earth, arose in Heaven.
Thus hath He unto death His beauty given:
And so of all which form inheriteth,

The fall doth pass the rise in worth;

For birth hath in itself the germ of death,

But death hath in itself the germ of birth.

It is the falling acorn buds the tree,
The falling rain that bears the greenery,

The fern-plants moulder when the ferns arise.
For there is nothing lives but something dies,
And there is nothing dies but something lives.
Till skies be fugitives,

Till Time, the hidden root of change, updries,
Are Birth and Death inseparable on earth;
For they are twain yet one, and Death is Birth.

AFTER-STRAIN

Now with wan ray that other sun of Song

Sets in the bleakening waters of my soul: One step, and lo! the Cross stands gaunt and long "Twixt me and yet bright skies, a presaged dole. Even so, O Cross! thine is the victory.

Thy roots are fast within our fairest fields; Brightness may emanate in Heaven from thee,

Here thy dread symbol-only shadow yields. Of reaped joys thou art the heavy sheaf

Which must be lifted, though the reaper groan; Yea, we may cry till Heaven's great ear be deaf,

But we must bear thee, and must bear alone. 'Lo, though suns rise and set, but crosses stay, I leave thee ever,' saith she, 'light of cheer.' "Tis so: yon sky still thinks upon the Day,

And showers-aërial blossoms on his bier. Yon cloud with wrinkled fire is edged sharp;

And once more welling through the air, ah me! How the sweet viol plains him to the harp,

Whose pangèd sobbings throng tumultuously. My soul is quitted of death-neighbouring swoon, Who shall not slake her immitigable scars. Until she hear 'My sister!' from the moon,

And take the kindred kisses of the stars.

HYMN TO THE ETERNAL LIGHT

BY FRIEDRICH RÜCKERT

Bid th' world bathe in Thy life-giving golden stream,-Eternal Light!
Feed at thy festal board our spirit, with grace extreme-Eternal Light!

Flood the whole world, ay, even as the sea wide-sweepeth about the dry land, O ethereal glory, breaking on far shores agleam, Eternal Light!

Nay, not thee the sun, but Thou 'tis gattest the innumerable host of suns;
Lo, in thy rays, as gnats in th' even-glow they teem, Eternal Light!

Thee the heavens can hold not, so to the earth thou comest gently down
Kindling fires of sweet oblation in every clime I ween, Eternal Light!

Into th' ocean, as on Olympos and Mount Sinai, thou dost drop

Through th' thick dark of th' welkin, quick, thy plumbline keen, Eternal Light!

Turning her face from Thee, th' earth rolleth into th' gloom, but Thou
Flowest to greet her out of the gloom in flooding sheen, Eternal Light!

Even by crooked courses folly must in th' end return to thee;
Yet to theeward let me fare by straight paths and foreseen, Eternal Light!

Whither, ah, shall I hide from thee? Shall I mount the steep of heaven
Where by twinkling myriads, yonder, thy stars convene, Eternal Light?

Whither? burrow into the night far down the maw of earth?
Aureate, lo, thou piercest to its choking deep obscene, Eternal Light!

Nowise can my shrinking soul from service unto thee draw back
Since thy golden yoke upon me laid hath been, Eternal Light!

Thou with radiant rays hast strung the lyre of the evening stars!

Thou pitchest th' shrill choir of locusts in the woodland green, Eternal Light!

Yea, in th' tones even of my strain, O insinuant One, abide!
Let thy jewel not suffer for his setting mean, Eternal Light!

Forth, even as thy sunbeams, send the lays of thy worshippèr

Till all mankind they summon to thy great feast serene, Eternal Light!