AD ASTRA

CONQUEROR! what have you seen in the heavens?

Star-dust is in your hair.

Say, have you woken the sleeping thunder

And taken it unaware?

Come on the storm as a wild beast crouching,

And mocked at it in its lair?

Ridden the wind as a riotous charger,

Your hand in his mane entwined,

As a new unbroken Pegasus,

That a master had divined?

A boast for a man to bring down from heaven,

“I have bridled the wild East wind!”

Gazed in the mirror of unshed dew-ponds,

Bathed in the rivers of rain?

Caught at the meteor’ s sparks in passing,

And flung them to earth for grain?

Dropped in the wake of the scattered handfuls

To the morning earth again?

How have you raced with the car of Apollo,

A trial of strength indeed,

He in his golden chariot standing

And lashing his golden steed,

You with your glimmering wings of silver

And unconquerable speed?

What of the sirens that dwell in the heavens

In a palace of cloud and air?

As a lover of nymphs inviolate,

Of sirens with rainbow hair,

Have you dwelt like a new Odysseus

With the sirens of the air?

Speak! have you guarded Diana’ s uprising

From a couch of mist and sheen?

Speak! have you watched Diana’ s disrobing

After her reign as queen?

Speak! for your eyes are eloquent

With the mysteries they have seen.

And your feet, which have trod in unlaboured fields,

Are with wingèd sandals shod,

And the hawthorn stick at the touch of your hand

Has turned to a wingèd rod,

And your eyes and lips are burnished gold

With the kiss of the bright sun-god.