Page:Poems Cook.djvu/152

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SONG OF THE SUN.
I know when my radiant streams are flung,
Creation shows all that is bright,
But I'm jealous of naught save the face of the young
Laughing back my noontide light:
I see nothing so pure or so dazzling on earth,
As childhood's brow with its halo of mirth.

My strength goes down in the crystal caves,
I gem the billow's wide curl;
I paint the dolphin and burnish the waves,
I tinge the coral and pearl.
Love ye the flowers! What power, save mine,
Can the velvet rose unfold?
Who else can purple the grape on the vine,
Or flush the wheat-ear with gold!
Look on the beam-lit wilderness spot—
"Tis more fair than the palace, where I come not.

Though giant clouds ride on the whirlwind's tide,
And gloom on the world may fall;
I yet flash on in gorgeous pride,
Untarnish'd, above them all.
So the pure, warm heart for awhile may appear,
In probations of sorrow and sin,
To be dimm'd and obscured, but trial or tear
Cannot darken the spirit within.
Let the breast keep its truth, and Life's shadows may roll,
But they quench not, they reach not the Sun nor the Soul.


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