er. In "The Tower of the Sun," we find mighty princes, sons of
kings, who had gone thither in their desire to hunt for the light,
turned into stones by the "giant merciless." Motionless they stand, a
world of voiceless statues while

From their deep and smothered eyes,
Something like living glance
Struggles to peep through its stone-veil!

Then the fair redeemer, a princess beautiful, comes from far away--the
light, it seems, of inner knowledge and inspiration--and the Sun's tower

Gleamed forth as if the light
Of a new dawn embraced its walls!

She knows where the fountain of life flows and with its waters wakes up
the sons of kings, shining

... with transcending gleam
Like a far greater Sun.

This is, then, the sun whom Palamas worships as a god. It is a sun who
possesses all the beauty and power of the actual source of light, but
who, at the same time, by the spell of mystic symbolism rises to the
splendor of a thrice-fair and almighty divinity containing all that is
beautiful and noble and powerful in the world. Upon such a sun he seeks
to find a light-flooded palace for his child in the "Mourning Song." To
such a sun he offers his hymns and prayers; and such a sun he conceives
as a vengeful blood-fed Moloch or a muse of light. He is a fair Phoebus,
who rises from pure Olympus' heights to play as a fountain of flowing
harmonies or to smite as "an archer of fiery arrows" all living things.

4. VERSES OF A FAMILIAR TUNE

In the "Verses of a Familiar Tune" the poet conceives of himself as of a
wedding guest who travels far away to join the festival. The bride,
"thrice-beautiful" seems to be Earth; and the bridegroom, the Sun. The
journey to the festival is the span of mortal life. The poet, who must
travel over this path, endeavors to brighten it with dreams and shorten
his way's weary length

With sounds that like sweet longings wake in him
Old sounds familiar, low whisperings
Of women's beauties and of home-born shadows ...
The flames that burn within the heart, the kisses
That the waves squander on the sandy beach,
And the sweet birds that sing on children's lips!

The second poem of this group, "The Paralytic on the River's Bank,"
recalls the notes verging on despair which we have found in "The
Return." Again the gleaming past, appearing here as the other bank of
the river, revels

In lustful growth and endless mirth
With leafy slopes