Hymn of the Moon to the Sun

I.


THRoUGH the desolate aisles of my shadowy caves,
On my mountains that must but for thee tower dim,
O’er the rock-girdled deep of my wide-wasting waves,
Glide the glorious notes of thy mystical hymn:
And I go with a statelier step through the space,
Spurning backward the night of its cloud-woven bars,
That all vainly would mantle thy luminous face,
Looking round like a god’s on the Eden of stars.


II.


flow I laugh iu the beams of thine altars of fire!
How I bless thee for all the mild beauty that thou,
In thy large bosom nursing the love of a sire,
Like a paradise-blessing, threw over my brow!
What a rapture is mine as I roll in thy sight!
What a sweet tender thankfulness thrills through my frame,
While I hold o’er the Earth my large urn of soft light,
When she turns for a while from thy too-blissful flame.


III.


It is mine, it is mine, through the long lonesome hours,
Like a sentinel-soul to watch over her sleep—
Gilding forests, and cities, and hamlets, and towers,
All the dells of the land and the isles of the deep.
But ‘tis chief for the lover I cherish my ray—
The young lover who strays with his own by my light.
Sacred Sun! what but love, in thy heavenly ray,
That redeems me so oft from the shadow of night?



IV.

Through the desolate aisles of my shadowy caves,
On my mountains that must but for thee tower dim,
O’er the rock-girdled deep of my wide-wasting waves,
Glide the glorious notes of thy mystical hymn:
Let it glide, let it glide, with thy soul-giving gleam,
Like an angel of mercy sent forth from thy throne;
Call me still, call me still, as I bask in thy beam,
And look up to thy splendor, "Thine own, still thine own!"