Stella Flammarum

Strange Wanderer out of the deeps,
Whence, journeying, come you ?
From what far, unsunned sleeps
Did fate foredoom you,
Returning for ever again
Through the surgings of man,
A flaming, awesome portent of dread
Down the centuries' span ?

Riddle ! from the dark unwrung
By all earth's sages ;
God's fiery torch from His hand outflung,
To flame through the ages :
Thou Satan of planets eterne,
'Mid angry path,
Chained, in circlings vast, to burn
Out ancient wrath.

By what dread hand first loosed
From fires eternal ?
With majesties dire infused
Of force supernal,
Takest thy headlong way
O'er the highways of space ?
Oh, wonderful, blossoming flower of fear
On the sky's far face !

What secrets of destiny's will
In thy wild burning ?
What portent dire of humanity's ill
In thy returning ?
Or art thou brand of love
In masking of bale ?
And bringest thou ever some mystical surcease
For all who wail ?

Perchance, O Visitor dread,
Thou hast thine appointed
Task, thou bolt of the vasts outsped !
With God's anointed,
Performest some endless toil
In the universe wide :
Feeding or curing some infinite need
Where the vast worlds ride.

Once, only once, thy face
Will I view in this breathing ;
Just for a space thy majesty trace
'Mid earth's mad seething :
Ere I go hence to my place,
As thou to thy deeps ;
Thou flambent core of a universe dread,
Where all else sleeps.
But thou and man's spirit are one :
Thou poet ! Thou flaming
Soul of the dauntless sun,
Past all reclaiming !
One in that red unrest,
That yearning, that surge,
That mounting surf of the infinite dream
O'er eternity's verge.