And men have worshipped thee. The Persian, on his mountain-top, Waits kneeling till thy sun go up, God-like in his serenity. All-giving, and none-gifted, he draws near, And the wide earth waits till his face appear-- Longs patient. And the herald glory leaps Along the ridges of the outlying clouds, Climbing the heights of all their towering steeps. Sudden, still multitudinous laughter crowds The universal face: Lo, silently, Up cometh he, the never-closing eye! Symbol of Deity, men could not be Farthest from truth when they were kneeling unto thee!
Thou plaything of the child, When from the water's surface thou dost spring, Thyself upon his chamber ceiling fling, And there, in mazy dance and motion wild, Disport thyself--etherial, undefiled. Capricious, like the thinkings of the child! I am a child again, to think of thee In thy consummate glee. How I would play with thee, athirst to climb On sloping ladders of thy moted beams, When through the gray dust darting in long streams! How marvel at the dusky glimmering red, With which my closed fingers thou hadst made Like rainy clouds that curtain the sun's bed! And how I loved thee always in the moon! But most about the harvest-time, When corn and moonlight made a mellow tune, And thou wast grave and tender as a cooing dove! And then the stars that flashed cold, deathless love! And the ghost-stars that shimmered in the tide! And more mysterious earthly stars, That shone from windows of the hill and glen-- Thee prisoned in with lattice-bars, Mingling with household love and rest of weary men! And still I am a child, thank God!--to spy Thee starry stream from bit of broken glass Upon the brown earth undescried, Is a found thing to me, a gladness high, A spark that lights joy's altar-fire within, A thought of hope to prophecy akin, That from my spirit fruitless will not pass.
Thou art the joy of age: Thy sun is dear when long the shadow falls. Forth to its friendliness the old man crawls, And, like the bird hung out in his poor cage To gather song from radiance, in his chair Sits by the door; and sitteth there His soul within him, like a child that lies Half dreaming, with half-open eyes, At close of a long afternoon in summer-- High ruins round him, ancient ruins, where The raven is almost the only comer-- Half dreams, half broods, in wonderment At thy celestial ascent Through rifted loop to light upon the gold That waves its bloom in some high airy rent: So dreams the old man's soul, that is not old, But sleepy mid the ruins that infold.