Like harbour-lights the stars grow wide
before me,
I draw my worlds ten thousand
leagues a day.
Their far blue seas like April eyes adore
me.
They follow, dreaming, on
my soundless way.
How should they know, who wheel around
my burning,
What torments bore them, or
what power am I,
I, that with all those worlds around me
turning,
Sail, every hour, from sky
to unplumbed sky?
My planets, these live embers of my passion,
These children of my hurricanes
of flame,
Flung thro’ the night, for midnight
to refashion,
Praise, and forget, the splendour
whence they came.
THE EARTH
Was it a dream that, in those bright
dominions,
Are other worlds that sing,
with lives like mine,
Lives that with beating hearts and broken
pinions
Aspire and fall, half-mortal,
half-divine?
A grain of dust among those glittering
legions—
Am I, I only, touched with
joy and tears?
0, silver sisters, from your azure regions,
Breathe, once again, your
music of the spheres:—_
A nearer sun, a rose of light arises,
To clothe my glens with richer
clouds of flowers,
To paint my clouds with ever new surprises
And wreathe with mist my rosier
domes and towers;
Where now, to praise their gods, a throng
assembles
Whose hopes and dreams no
sphere but mine has known.
On other worlds the same warm sunlight
trembles;
But life, love, worship, these
are mine alone.
MARS
And now, as dewdrops in the dawn-light
glisten,
Remote and cold—see—Earth
and Venus roll.
We signalled them—in music!
Did they listen?
Could they not hear those
whispers of the soul?
May not their flesh have sealed that fount
of glory,
That pure ninth sense which
told us of mankind?
Can some deep sleep bereave them of our
story
As darkness hides all colours
from the blind?
I that am sailing deeper skies and dimmer,
Twelve million leagues beyond
the path of Mars,
Salute the sun, that cloudy pearl, whose
glimmer
Renews my spring and steers
me through the stars.
Think not that I by distances am darkened.
My months are years; yet light
is in mine eyes.
Mine eyes are not as yours. Mine
ears have hearkened
To sounds from earth.
Five moons enchant my skies.
SATURN
And deeper yet, like molten opal shining
My belt of rainbow glory softly
streams.
And seven white moons around me intertwining
Hide my vast beauty in a mist
of dreams.
Huge is my orbit; and your flickering
planet
A mote that flecks your sun,
that faint white star;
Yet, in my magic pools, I still can scan
it;
For I have ways to look on
worlds afar.
