The New Zealot To The Sun

Persian, you rise     Aflame from climes of sacrifice     Where adulators sue,     And prostrate man, with brow abased,     Adheres to rites whose tenor traced     All worship hitherto.     Arch type of sway,     Meetly your over-ruling ray     You fling from Asia's plain,     Whence flashed the javelins abroad     Of many a wild incursive horde     Led by some shepherd Cain.     Mid terrors dinned     Gods too came conquerors from your Ind,     The book of Brahma throve;     They came like to the scythed car,     Westward they rolled their empire far,     Of night their purple wove.     Chemist, you breed     In orient climes each sorcerous weed     That energizes dream--     Transmitted, spread in myths and creeds,     Houris and hells, delirious screeds     And Calvin's last extreme.     What though your light     In time's first dawn compelled the flight     Of Chaos' startled clan,     Shall never all your darted spears     Disperse worse Anarchs, frauds and fears,     Sprung from these weeds to man?     But Science yet     An effluence ampler shall beget,     And power beyond your play--     Shall quell the shades you fail to rout,     Yea, searching every secret out     Elucidate your ray.