THE SUN'S PLACE IN CREATION. 131 



And she, with filial love and joy, admired, 



Weeping and trembling, in the wont of maids. 



Meantime her pious fame had filled the skies. 



He that begat her, the almighty Sun, 



Passing in regal state, did call her ' child,' 



And blessed her and her mother where they sat 



Her by the imposition of bright hands, 



The Earth with kisses. Then the Spring would go, 



Abashed with bliss, decorous in the face 



Of love parental. But the Earth stood up, 



And held her there ; and, these encircling, came 



All kind of happy shapes that wander space, 



Brightening the air. And they two sang like gods 



Under the answering heavens." 



We think that the ancients, if they had seriously reflected 

 upon the important part played by the sun in the economy 

 of nature ; how it is the heart, and spring, and inner power 

 of every movement and manifestation of life ; how it is, as 

 Sir David Brewster says, the centre and soul of our world, 

 the lamp that lights it, the fire that heats it, the magnet 

 that guides and controls it, the fountain of colour, which 

 gives its azure to the sky, its verdure to the fields, its rain- 

 bow-hues to the gay world of flowers, and the purple light 

 of love to the marble cheek of youth and beauty; we think 

 that the ancients, if they had thought upon, or had known, 

 all this, would not have given the earth a chief place in 

 our system. And that they did so is all the more strange 

 when we remember that they attributed to the world a 

 soul (the "soul of the world" is a favourite idea with the 

 great philosophers of antiquity), and looked upon the 

 planets as living creatures. 



