C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Chanticleers Hymn to the Sun
By Edmond Rostand (18681918)
T
That turnest the wither’d blossom to butterfly-wings,
When, like a flickering life, the almond-tree flings
Its petals to the breeze
Cold from the Pyrenees,—
To ripen the honey, to make the sad visage bright,
Piercing each flower and the cottage of each poor wight,
Divided, remains whole,
Even as a mother’s soul.
Thou who comest to color the soap-suds blue,
And often choosest, to signal thy last adieu
A humble window-pane,
When thou dost set again.
Thou makest my golden friend on the steeple glow,
And, fluttering thro’ the lindens, dost stealthily throw
Round light-flakes on the lawn,
Too fair to tread upon.
Thou makest the drying clout like a banner unfold;
And, thanks to thee, the mill wears a hat of gold,
A hive, his little mate,
A bonnet aureate.
Glory to thee on the gate, in the grasses high,
On the wing of the swan, in the lizard’s glittering eye!
Thy broad art never fails
To show the least details.
Which lies outstretcht at the foot of everything bright,
Thou doublest in number the objects of our delight,
Adding a silhouette
To each, that’s prettier yet.
With gods the woodland, with flames the brook as it flees;
Thou defiest, O Sun, the humble trees.
The world, without thy beam,
Would only be, not seem.