Pocahontas and Other Poems (New York)/The Sun
For works with similar titles, see The Sun.
THE SUN.
Eye of thy Maker, which hath never sleptSince the Eternal Voice from chaos said"Let there be light!" great monarch of the day,How shall our dark, cold strain, fit welcome speak,Fit praise? Lo! the poor pagan, kneeling, viewsThy burning chariot, to the highest skyRoll on resistless, and with awe exclaims,"The god! The god!" And shall we blame his creed,For whom no heaven hath open'd, to revealA better faith? Where else could he descrySuch image of the Deity? such powerWith goodness blending? From the reedy grass,Wiry and sparse, that in the marshes springs,To the most tremulous and tender shootOf the mimosa, from the shrinking budNursed in the greenhouse, to the gnarled oakNotching a thousand winters on its trunk,All are the children of thy love, oh sun!And by thy smile sustain'd.Unresting orb!Pursuest thou, mid the labyrinth of suns,Some pathway of thine own? Say, dost thou sweep,With all thy marshall'd planets in thy train,In grand procession on, through boundless space,Age after age, towards some mysterious pointMark'd by His finger, who doth write thy date,Thy "mene-mene-tekel," on the walls Of the blue vault that spans our universe?—But Thou, who rul'st the sun, the astonish'd soulShrinks as it takes Thy name. Almost it fearsTo be forgotten, mid the myriad worldsWhich thou hast made.And yet the sickliest leafThat drinks thy dew reproves our unbelief.The frail field-lily, which no florist's eyeRegards, doth win a glorious garniture,To kings denied. So, while to dust we bow,Needy and poor, oh! bid us learn the loreGraved on the humblest lily's leaf, as deepAs on you disk of fire—to trust in Thee.