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:--_
VENUS
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?
JUPITER
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.
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