Man and Nature

Watching at daybreak the bright sun come forth I asked the assembled host of heaven and earth

Your radiant looks are kindled by that glowing orb’s warm beams That turns to rippling silver your flowing streams

That sun it is that clothes you in these ornaments of light, And whose torch burns to keep your concourse bright.

Your roses and rose‐gardens are pictures of Paradise Where the Scripture of The Sun paints its device;

Scarlet the mantle of the flower, and emerald of the tree, Green and red sylphs of your consistory;

Your tall pavilion, the blue sky. Is fringed with tasselled gold When round the horizons ruddy clouds are rolled,

And when into evening’s goblet your rosetinted nectar flows How lovely the twilight’s soft vermilion glows!

Your station is exalted, and your splendour: over all Your creatures light lies thick, a dazzling pall;

To your magnificence the dawn is one high hymn of praise, No rag of night lurks on it in that sun’s blaze.

And I—I too inhabit this abode of light; but why Is the star burned out that rules my destiny?

Why chained in the dark, past reach of any ray, Ill-faring and ill-fated and ill-doing must I stay?

Speaking, I heard a voice from somewhere sound, From heaven’s balcony or near the ground

You are creation’s gardener, flowers live only in your seeing, By your light hangs my being or not-being

All beauty is in you: I am the tapestry of your soul; I am its key, but you are Love’s own scroll.

The load that would not leave me you have lifted from my shoulder, You are all my chaotic work’s re‐moulder.

If I exist, it is only as a pensioner of the sun, Needing no aid from whom your spark burns on;

My garden would turn wilderness if the sun should fail, This sojourn of delight a prison’s pale.

Oh you entangled in the snare of longing and unrest, Still ignorant of a thing so manifest

Dullard, who should be proud, and still by self-contempt enslaved Bear in your brain illusion deep engraved

If you would weigh your worth at its true rate, No longer would ill‐faring or ill-doing be your fate!