Apollo

What are stars, but hieroglyphics of God's glory write in lightning
 * On the wide-unfolded pages of the azure scroll above?

But the quenchless apotheoses of thoughts forever brightening
 * In the mighty Mind immortal of the God whose name is Love?

Diamond letters sculptured, rising, on the azure ether pages,
 * That now sing to one another--unto one another shine--

God's eternal scripture talking, through the midnight, to the Ages,
 * Of the life that is immortal, but the life that is divine.

Like some deep impetuous river from the fountains everlasting,
 * Down the serpentine soft valleys of the vistas of all Time,

Over cataracts of adamant uplifted unto mountains,
 * Soared his soul to God in thunder on the wings of thought sublime.

With the rising golden glory of the sun in ministrations,
 * Making oceans metropolitan of splendor for the dawn--

Piling pyramid on pyramid of music for the nations--
 * Sings the Angel who sits shining everlasting in the sun,
 * For the stars, which are the echoes of the shining of the sun.

Like the lightning piled on lightnings, ever rising, never reaching,
 * In one monument of glory towards the golden gates of God--

Voicing out themselves in thunder upon thunder in their preaching,
 * Piled this Cyclop up his Epic where the Angels never trod.

Like the fountains everlasting that forever more are flowing
 * From the throne within the centre of the City built on high,

With their genial irrigation life forever more bestowing--
 * Flows his lucid, liquid river through the gardens of the sky,
 * For the stars forever blooming in the gardens of the sky.