From the days of Pindar there has been a brilliant succession of singers
and worshippers of the sun, culminating in the matchless song of
Shelley. In Francis Thompson's poems of the sun, the succession is taken
up again in a fashion which is not unworthy of the splendours of
paganism at its very highest.
"And the sun comes with power amid the clouds of heaven,
Before his way
Went forth the trumpet of the March
Before his way, before his way,
Dances the pennon of the May!
O Earth, unchilded, widowed Earth, so long
Lifting in patient pine and ivy-tree
Mournful belief and steadfast prophecy,
Behold how all things are made true!
Behold your bridegroom cometh in to you
Exceeding glad and strong!"
The great song takes us back to the days of Mithra and the _sol
invictus_ of Aurelian. That outburst of sunshine in the evening of the
Roman Empire, rekindling the fires of Apollo's ancient altars for men
who loved the sunshine and felt the wonder of it, is repeated with
almost added glory in Thompson's marvellous poems.
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