Star Condemed

Earth, ocean, air and night, mountains, winds, thy star,

Are at thy beck and bidding, child of clay!

Before thee at they quest their spirts are,

Mortal! To thy bidding bow'd,

From my mansion in the cloud,

Which the breath of twilight builds,

And the summers sunset guilds,

They crown'd him long ago

On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds,

With a diadem of snow.

Around his waist are forests braced,

In the blue depth of the waters,

Where the wave, have no strike, where wind is a stranger,

And the sea snake hath life.

Where the slumbering earthquake, lies pillo'd on fire,

And the lakes of bitumen, rise boiling higher.

I am the rider of the wind, the stirer of the storm,

The hurricane I left behind, is yet with lightning warm.

My dwelling is the shadow of the night.

Why doth thy magic torture me with light?

The star which rules thy destiny,

Was ruled, ere earth began by me.

It was a world as fresh as fair,

As e'er revolved round sun and air,

It's course was free and regular,

Space blossom'd not a lovelier star,

The hour arrived, and it became,

A wandering mass of shapeless flame.

A pathless comet, and a curse,

The meance of the universe,

Without a sphere, without a course,

A bright deformitty on high.

The burning monster of the upper sky.

And thou beneath its influence born,

Thou worm, who I obey and scorn,

Forced by a power, which is not thine,

Lent to thee but to make thee mine.