Ascendant in the heav’ns the monarch reigns.
Noon (all-defiant in th’ imperial plains),
Surnamed Meridian, bends his mystic bow,
And waits the assault of his presumptuous foe;[206]
But grew despairingly as forth he came
(Like heav’n and earth combin’d in one great flame.)
Towards the vertex of the brazen arch.
But as he came, and with prodigious march,
Meridian waver’d, and declined the fray:
Thus onward Horus roll’d triumphantly!
The god, though angry with this vain pretence,
Forgave Meridian the unjust offence,—
On this condition—that he’d[207] ne’er again
Dispute his passage through the vaulted main.
Meridian thankfully received the boon,
And thus renounced all title to the throne.