The New Zealot To The Sun

by Herman Melville

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.