Part 13 (2/2)

There is silence upon the face of the Earth and the waters thereof!

Yea, the silence doth brood on the waters like a nesting bird; The silence sleepeth also upon the bosoreat spaces star doth speak unto star, The Earth is faint with longing and ith the tears of her desire; The star-girdled night doth embrace her, but she is not comforted

She lies enshrouded in rave-clothes, And stretches her pale hands to the East

Lo! away in the farthest East there is the shadow of a light; The Earth seeth and lifts herself She looks out froels fly forth from the Holy Place, oh Sun, They shoot their fiery swords into the darkness and shrivel it up

They climb the heavens and cast down the pale stars froeful stars back into the woht; They cause thelory comes, oh Sun!

Oh, Thou beautiful one, Thou drapest thyself in fire

The wide heavens are thy pathway: thou rollest o'er them as a chariot

The Earth is thy bride Thou dost es forth children; Yea, Thou favourest her, and she yields her increase

Thou art the All Father and the giver of life, oh Sun

The young children stretch out their hands and grow in thy brightness; The old th

Only the dead forget Thee, oh Sun!

When Thou art wroth then Thou dost hide Thy face; Thou drawest around Thee a thick curtain of shadows

Then the Earth grows cold and the Heavens are dismayed; They tremble, and the sound thereof is the sound of thunder: They weep, and their tears are outpoured in the rain; They sigh, and the inds are the voice of their sighing

The flowers die, the fruitful fields languish and turn pale; The old o unto their appointed place When Thou withdrawest thy light, oh Sun!

Say, what art Thou, oh ThouTerror?

When didst Thou begin, and when is the day of Thy ending?

Thou art the rai Spirit {Endnote 16} None did place Thee on high, for Thou was the Beginning

Thou shalt not be ended when thy children are forgotten; Nay, Thou shalt never end, for thy hours are eternal

Thou sittest on high within thy golden house and measurest out the centuries

Oh Father of Life! oh dark-dispelling Sun!

He ceased this soleoing through inal; and then, after a lanced up towards the funnel-sloped opening in the dome and added--

Oh Sun, descend upon thine Altar!

As he spoke a wonderful and a beautiful thing happened Down fro the twilight like a sword of fire Full upon the closed petals it fell and ran shi+lorious flower opened as though beneath the bright influence Slowly it opened, and as the great petals fell wide and revealed the golden altar on which the fire ever burns, the priests blew a blast upon the trumpets, and froainst the do down the marble walls And now the flower altar was open, and the sunlight fell full upon the tongue of sacred flame and beat it down, so that it wavered, sank, and vanished into the hollow recesses whence it rose As it vanished, the ain the old priest flung up his hands and called aloud--

We sacrifice to thee, oh Sun!

Once ht Nyleptha's eye; it was fixed upon the brazen flooring

'Look out,' I said, aloud; and as I said it, I saw Agon bend forward and touch soreat white sea of faces around us turned red and then white again, and a deep breath went up like a universal sigh Nyleptha leant forward, and with an involuntary movement covered her eyes with her hand Sorais turned and whispered to the officer of the royal bodyguard, and then with a rending sound the whole of the brazen flooring slid from before our feet, and there in its place was suddenly revealed a s furnace beneath the altar, big enough and hot enough to heat the iron stern-post of a man-of-war