Around The Sun

THE weazen planet Mercury,

Whose song is done,

— Rash heart that drew too near

His dazzling lord the Sun!—

Forgets that life was dear,

So shriveled now and sere

The goblin planet Mercury.

But Venus, thou mysterious, Enveilèd one,

Fairest of lights that fleet

Around the radiant Sun,

Do not thy pulses beat

To music blithe and sweet,

O Venus, veiled, mysterious?

And Earth, our shadow-haunted Earth,

Hast thou, too, won

The graces of a star

From the glory of the Sun?

Do poets dream afar

That here all lusters are,

Upon our blind, bewildered Earth?

We dream that mighty forms on Mars,

With wisdom spun

From subtler brain than man's,

Are hoarding snow and sun,

Wringing a few more spans

Of life, fierce artisans,

From their deep-grooved, worn planet Mars.

But thou, colossal Jupiter,

World just begun,

Wild globe of golden steam,

Chief nursling of the Sun,

Transcendest human dream,

That faints before the gleam

Of thy vast splendor, Jupiter.

And for what rare delight,

Or woes to shun,

Of races increate,

New lovers of the Sun,

Was Saturn ringed with great

Rivers illuminate,

Ethereal jewel of delight?

Far from his fellows, Uranus

Doth lonely run

In his appointed ways

Around the sovereign Sun, —

Wide journeys that amaze

Our weak and toiling gaze,

Searching the path of Uranus.

But on the awful verge

Of voids that stun

The spirit, Neptune keeps

The frontier of the Sun.

Over the deeps on deeps

He glows, a torch that sweeps

The circle of that shuddering verge.

On each bright planet waits

Oblivion,

Who casts beneath her feet

Ashes of star and sun,

But when all ruby heat.

Is frost, a Heart shall beat,

Where God, within the darkness, waits.