Far in the west, the clouds were gathering fast
About the space in the celestial vast,
Where the great Trav’ler takes his eve’s repast,—
That famed dispenser of eternal light,
Who bathes his rosy form in depths of night,
And bids the world behold him gently steep
His swollen body in the radiant deep;—
There, like a whale beneath the liquid main,
Retires in confidence; and comes again
Refresh’d, and strengthen’d, for returning day:
But he, unlike the monsters of the sea,
Whose days are number’d, shall for ever rise—
For ever wander through th’ unbounded skies!
Two hours, or nearly, Horus had to march,
Ere he could reach the buttress of the arch
Which spans the ocean of ethereal air:
There, cloudlings waited for the golden fare—
That unmatch’d crimson, to edge round the robes—
The night apparel of the king of globes.