The Prayer Call

One night among the planets The Star of Morning said— “Has ever star seen slumber Desert Man’s drowsy head?”

Bright Mercury returned, “Served well that pretty rebel— Tame sleep was what he earned!”

“Have we,” asked Venus, “nothing To talk about besides? Or what is it to us, where That night-blind firefly hides?”

“A star,” the Full Moon answered, “Is man, of terrene ray: You walk the night in splendour, But so does he the day;

“Let him once learn the joy of Outwatching night’s brief span— Higher than all the Pleiades The unfathomed dust of Man!

Closed in that dust a radiance Lies hidden, in whose clear light Shall all the sky’s fixed tenures And orbits fade from sight.”

Suddenly rose the prayer-call, And overwhelmed heaven’s lake; That summons at which even Cold hearts of mountains quake.