Sol

“ Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud,
To rise before me—Rise, O ever rise,
Rise like a cloud of incense from the Earth!
Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven,
Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises GOD.
1802 ”

“ Now, so far as we can comprehend, the Sun is the immediate or direct source of light and heat—or fire—hence, the source of animated existence of all pertaining to this Earth; and so, also, as we believe, to all the other planets, or worlds belonging to our solar system, or within the Sun's vast domain. ”

“ The Sun is held by all Philosophers and Astronomers to be the central pivot of the solar system, and the loadstone power of attraction, which governs, steadies, and controls all its surrounding planet-worlds in their orbits. ”

“ They say the sky is the same everywhere. Travellers, the shipwrecked, exiles, and the dying draw comfort from the thought, and no doubt if you are of a mystical tendency, consolation, and even explanation, shower down from the unbroken surface. ”

“ The sun is the great store-house of Prana for this solar sys­tem, and is a mighty dynamo constantly sending forth its vibrations to the limits of its system, vitalizing everywhere and making possible life—physical life, we mean, of course. ”

“ May you always see a blue sky overhead, my young friend; and then, even when the time comes, which is coming now for me, when the woods are all black, when night is fast falling, you will be able to console yourself, as I am doing, by looking up to the sky." ”

“ The sun shines and dispels the darkness, and makes it light. And do you know that the moon does not shine by its own light, but it simply throws back again, as we say, reflects, the light of the sun, just the same as when a boy takes a small piece or looking-glass and throws the light across the street? There is no light in the looking-glass itself, but it simply takes the rays of light which fall upon it from the sun and bends them, or turns them, so that the boy can throw the rays of light across the street, or upon anything that he desires that is in range of him. ”

“ History tells of the Sun in all its glory, of a bright, warm Earth, of joy on the globe. It tells, too, of the moon, a shell set aglow by the sun's rays and reflecting on Earth the beauty of silvery light. But with the light from the sun growing more and more feeble through the preceding thousands of years, the Night's fixture had faded too until now it was no more than a dark body flitting past by day. Only at times during the night did a stray gleam of the sun illuminate, for a fleeting moment, the dead face, as a shadow passing across the white icecapes. ”

“ To see the sun rise and set, within a space of time to be measured by seconds; to watch (after a little) the moon leap—a pale, and ever growing orb—up into the night sky, and glide, with a strange swiftness, through the vast arc of blue; and, presently, to see the sun follow, springing out of the Eastern sky, as though in chase; and then again the night, with the swift and ghostly passing of starry constellations, was all too much to view believingly. ”

“ How can I think of myself when infinitude o'er me is glowing,
Glowing with tokens of love from the land where my sorrows shall cease?
Oh, summer-night of the South! Oh, sweet languor of zephyrs love-sighing!
Oh, mighty circuit of shadowy solitude, holy and still!
Music scarce audible, echo-less harmony joyously dying,
Dying in faint suspirations o'er meadow, and forest, and hill!
I must go forth and be part of it, part of the night and its gladness.
But a few steps, and I pause on the marge of the shining lagoon. ”

“ The jealous sun conceals all but his arrogant face,
You bid the Milky Way and a million suns to shine.
Each star to numberless planets gives light and motion and heat,
But you enmantle them all, the nearest and most remote;
And the lustres of all the suns are but spangles under your feet,—
Mere bubbles and beads of noon, they circle and shine and float. ”

“ When the sun rises in splendour above the eastern horizon, tinting the sky with varied colours, lighting up the clouds which till then have been but dark patches on the heavens, bringing out the colours of hill and dale, rock and river, fields and woods, the heart gladdens at the spectacle. A pleasing melancholy falls on us as the light fades away at eventide, tint after tint vanishing, until at length the gloom of night enshrouds all. ”

“ The sun is rising quicker than ever mortal on earth witnessed its ascent. Far below is Mother Earth, wrapt in mists and deep blue shadows, and far above are those light, filmy, ethereal clouds now faintly tinged with pink And all about great mountains of cloud, lazily floating in space. ”

“ Shafts of light seemed to dart in rapid succession from earth to sky, until at last the vast luminous orb of day rose from the depth of the many-coloured radiance, and with its surpassing glory put everything else to shame. ”

“ Even the wintry sky borrowed, for an hour, the spectral aspect of the earth, and the familiar shapes of cloud, as of hill, stood out with all the majesty of uncovered laws—stripped of the mere frivolous effect of light or shade. ”

“ What if that light, Sent from her through the wide transpicuous air, To the terrestrial moon be as a star, Enlightening her by day, as she by night This earth? reciprocal, if land be there, Fields and inhabitants: Her spots thou seest As clouds, and clouds may rain, and rain produce Fruits in her softened soil for some to eat Allotted there; and other suns perhaps, With their attendant moons, thou wilt descry, Communicating male and female light; Which two great sexes animate the world, Stored in each orb perhaps with some that live. ”

“ If the peace of the simple village had moved the child more strongly, because of the dark and troubled ways that lay beyond, and through which she had journeyed with such failing feet, what was the deep impression of finding herself alone in that solemn building, where the very light, coming through sunken windows, seemed old and grey, and the air, redolent of earth and mould, seemed laden with decay, purified by time of all its grosser particles, and sighing through arch and aisle, and clustered pillars, like the breath of ages gone! ”

“ Even more startling are the thoughts suggested by a view of the starlit heavens. From hundreds of suns at once the light-waves which have traversed varying but all enormous distances pour in upon the small circle of the eye-pupil, waves of many kinds coming in together from each sun. ”

“ To live on such an earth with such a sky above! Looking at the sky was like looking into a vast crystal. Farther and farther into space her gaze seemed to penetrate, and presently her soul began to follow her gaze. ”

“ ILLUSTRATING DAY AND NIGHT.
"We live on a big round globe called Earth," replied his sister, "and we travel round the sun, which gives the earth light and heat. The sun is like a great lamp in the sky, and when you face the lamp you see the light, but if you turn away from it you are in darkness. ”

“ The Journey of the Sun God made on the fourth day the two and seventy kinds of the wandering stars of heaven, and the fiery course of the sun that warms the world with the sense and the splendour of angels. Twelve plains there are under the body of the earth he lightens every night ”

“ Therefore, since the heat And the outpoured light of skiey sun Arrive our senses and caress our limbs, Form too and bigness of the sun must look Even here from earth just as they really be, So that thou canst scarce nothing take or add. And whether the journeying moon illuminate The regions round with bastard beams, or throw From off her proper body her own light,— Whichever it be, she journeys with a form Naught larger than the form doth seem to be Which we with eyes of ours perceive. ”

“ We might even go so far as to say that possibly Mira presents to us an example of what our sun will be in the course of time, as the dead and barren moon shows us, as in a magician's glass, the approaching fate of the earth. ”

“ The sunlight falls on the hand; the light remains without on the surface, but its influence enters the very being. This sense of absorbing something from earth, and flower, and sunlight is like hovering on the verge of a great truth. ”

“ The sun was in the act of descending, to be eclipsed by the edge of Earth, and its light came through hundreds of miles of thick air which turned it from a burning golden glare to flame-red, and then crimson, and then ruby-red as he stared. ”

“ No magic dwelling-place in magic story, shut up in the heart of a thick wood, was ever more solitary and deserted to the fancy, than was her father’s mansion in its grim reality, as it stood lowering on the street: always by night, when lights were shining from neighbouring windows, a blot upon its scanty brightness; always by day, a frown upon its never-smiling face. ”

“ The sun is the greatest light of all, more than a million times greater than the earth, and the most glorious and useful of all the lamps of heaven, a noble instance of the Creator's wisdom, power, and goodness, and an invaluable blessing to the creatures of this lower world. Let us learn from 8 Ps. xix. 1-6 how to give unto God the glory due unto his name, as the Maker of the sun. ”

“ And as the sun brings day, and his absence night, if he move through the circuit of the stars in a year, we shall have, in the course of that time, every part of the starry sphere in succession presented to us as our nocturnal sky. ”

“ I see the Sun standing amid roses in the western sky, into which he has thrown his ray-brush, wherewith he has to-day been painting the Earth;—and when I look round a little in our picture-exhibition, his enamelling is still hot on the mountains ”

“ And first of all the sun, which has the chief rank among all the stars, is moved in such a manner that it fills the whole earth with its light, and illuminates alternately one part of the earth, while it leaves the other in darkness. The shadow of the earth interposing causes night; and the intervals of night are equal to those of day. And it is the regular approaches and retreats of the sun from which arise the regulated degrees of cold and heat. ”

“ Devoted, mind and body, heart and soul, to Freedom, sir—to Freedom, blessed solace to the snail upon the cellar-door, the oyster in his pearly bed, the still mite in his home of cheese, the very winkle of your country in his shelly lair—in her unsullied name, we offer you our sympathy. Oh, sir, in this our cherished and our happy land, her fires burn bright and clear and smokeless; once lighted up in yours, the lion shall be roasted whole. ”

“ And shall he now regard with dismay the setting sun of his earthly life? When he looks back, he sees the farthest cloud of the sun-deserted east alive with a rosy hue. It is the prophecy of the sunset concerning the dawn. For the sun itself is ever a rising sun, and the morning will come though the night should be dark. ”

“ We come, now, to the contemplation of that which is of far greater importance to us than all other planets, worlds, stars, and wonders in the siderial Heavens. This is the Sun, which warms and lights up our earth, and all the other planets within its sphere. ”

“ The release of these four wretched creatures, and conveying them, astounded and bewildered, into the streets so full of life—a spectacle they had never thought to see again, until they emerged from solitude and silence upon that last journey, when the air should be heavy with the pent-up breath of thousands, and the streets and houses should be built and roofed with human faces, not with bricks and tiles and stones—was the crowning horror of the scene. ”

“ The night’s shade equal to the light of day.
For in the sun’s mid course between the blasts
Of south wind and of north, the heaven holds
His turning-points apart at distances
Now equalised, since such is the position
Of the whole starry circle, to glide through which
The sun takes up the period of a year,
Lighting the earth and sky with slanting rays,
As is shown by the arguments of those
Who have mapped out all the quarters of the sky,
Adorned with their twelve signs spaced out in order. ”

“ The great luminary that so recently sank behind the western hills is the real light. It pours its brilliant rays upon the moon and the moon reflects the sun's light upon your pathway. The moon, therefore, is only a reflector. ”

“ I suppose you all know that the earth is round, and that while the sun is shining on our side of the earth, and making it day here, on the other side of the earth it is night and is all dark. Now, I want to tell you that the sun is the source of all light upon the earth. ”

“ That soon as ever under open skies Is spread the shining water, all at once, If stars be out in heaven, upgleam from earth, Serene and radiant in the water there, The constellations of the universe— Now seest thou not in what a point of time An image from the shores of ether falls Unto the shores of earth? ”

“ That which appears only like a thin and silvery cloud streaking the heaven, is in effect composed of innumerable clusters of suns, each shining with its own light, and illuminating numbers of planets that revolve around them. Millions and millions of suns are ranged around us, all attended by innumerable worlds, yet calm, regular, and harmonious, all keeping the paths of immutable necessity. ”

“ Should those suns be differently coloured, each emitting its own peculiar shade of light as it appears above the horizon, the varied aspects of the perpetual day enjoyed by the inhabitants of those circling worlds present to the imagination harmonies of light and shade over which it is pleasant to linger. ”

“ But if they are exactly in the knots which form the points of intersection between the ascending and descending path of the moon, then the sky will be covered with denser darkness, and the whole atmosphere becomes so thick that we cannot see what is close to us.
6. Again, the sun is conceived to appear double when a cloud is raised higher than usual, which from its proximity to the eternal fires, shines in such a manner that it forms the brightness of a second orb as from a purer mirror. ”