rs and with loveliness!

Comes Fire, pontiff celestial, King of Elements, errant angel,
that basks and rejoices in his spaces.

He comes and takes from darkness and cold their undivided
victories. Out of the famished sands he leaps, out of the crater's
maw.

The genius of flame winds on, touching the peaks with consecration.
His red and golden nakedness is crested with his sable clouds of hair.

Upward and onward he aspires. His crimson vans are spread against
the heavens, his torches flutter, making glorious the funerals
of the day. His feet are a scourge across the soil; his arms
are lifted to the stars.

Co-eval with them he burns and sings with a thousand tongues.

SONG OF FIRE

A FETTERLESS, bright spirit, wing'd and pure,
Soul from all souls of Suns in essence bred,
Lo! Fire am I,--without me shall endure
No Life, nor plant nor creature lift its head.
In burning beards of comets red I float;
I dance with lambent torches on the stars;
I wash with sulphurous flame the roaring throat
Of peaks, and blaze beneath the thunder's cars.
Master of Earth am I;--on her my will
I stamp, and with fierce searing kisses press
My passion on her naked flesh and thrill
Her hidden veins with rapture. My caress
Is lustral. In her lovers' hearts I creep
And tip with fateful coals the prophet's tongue;
God-like from lips of poets I sing and leap,--
I the eternal fair, the eternal young!
And none shall conquer me save they who call
My strength to sovereign toil in craft or strife;
With me shall tribes of men hold festival,--
Cities and realms shall find me Death or Life.

Repossessed of their ancient heritage, the four conqueror Elements
sit on their dowered spheres.

Wind, Ember, Current, conscious Earth, the eternal weavers
and toilers, labour in felicity.

Chaos and Night and Death are disenthroned. The system burns along
its orbits through the dark. The benisons of the stars and suns
are cast upon these youngest worlds.

Buoyant and blithe the planets wheel.

Their year-long arcs and each season's ordained processional
are portioned unto them: their vassal moons also and the speed of
their turning and their measure of night and day.

The ruddy jocund Earth presses close to the Sun, timorous of the
outer void, baring her bosom to his kiss.

Has not the inevitable and recurrent Spring of Existence come
unto her once again? The iron shackles of Silence--are they
not brok