rain." Analogies which are but fancy to us, were realities to these men
of past ages. They could see in the waterspout a huge serpent who
elevated himself out of the ocean and reached his head to the skies.
They could feel, in the pangs of hunger, a live creature gnawing within
their bodies, and they heard the voices of the hill-dwarfs answering in
the echo. The _Sun_, the first object which struck them with wonder,
was, to them, the child of Night; the Dawn came before he was born, and
died as he rose in the heavens. He strangled the serpents of the night;
he went forth like a bridegroom out of his chamber, and like a giant, to
run his course.[553:1] He had to do battle with clouds and
storms.[553:2] Sometimes his light grew dim under their gloomy veil, and
the children of men shuddered at the wrath of the hidden Sun.[553:3]
Sometimes his ray broke forth, only, after brief splendor, to sink
beneath a deeper darkness; sometimes he burst forth at the end of his
course, trampling on the clouds which had dimmed his brilliancy, and
bathing his pathway with blood.[553:4] Sometimes, beneath mountains of
clouds and vapors, he plunged into the leaden sea.[553:5] Sometimes he
looked benignly on the face of his mother or his bride who came to greet
him at his journey's end.[553:6] Sometimes he was the lord of heaven and
of light, irresistible in his divine strength; sometimes he toiled for
others, not for himself, in a hard, unwilling servitude.[553:7] His
light and heat might give light and destroy it.[553:8] His chariot might
scorch the regions over which it passed, his flaming fire might burn up
all who dared to look with prying eyes into his dazzling
treasure-house.[553:9] He might be the child destined to slay his
parents, or to be united at the last in an unspeakable peace, to the
bright Dawn who for a brief space had gladdened his path in the
morning.[553:10] He might be the friend of the children of men, and the
remorseless foe of those powers of darkness who had stolen away his
bride.[553:11] He might be a warrior whose eye strikes terror into his
enemies, or a wise chieftain skilled in deep and hidden
knowledge.[554:1] Sometimes he might appear as a glorious being doomed
to an early death, which no power could avert or delay.[554:2] Sometimes
grievous hardships and desperate conflicts might be followed by a long
season of serene repose.[554:3] Wherever he went, men might welcome him
in love, or shrink from him in fear an