The Seraphs’ Holiday

There is a year when all the stars, which throng The blue abysses of eternity, Back to the stations, whence their march began, Have rolled. The wondrous season passes not In Heaven uncelebrated; but with pomp, And dance, and song, and gorgeous festivals, The happy people mark its slow return. Then all the mighty Seraphim, who rule By Allah’s will the starry satrapies Of the Universe, with joyful hearts receive Permission to revisit once again The golden streets of Paradise, the groves, And fields, and streams, and shady palaces Of their nativity. Upon the morn Of their return, soon as the eastern wind Begins to fan the innumerable palms, Amid whose waving branches glittering stand The beatific mansions, straight the walls, Smaragdine domes and minarets, which grace Or fortify the blest metropolis, Are thickly lined with eager faces, set With dark angelic eyes, whose glances pierce Interminably far the rosy veils Of pure celestial air, wherein no mote Or vapor floats to intercept the view. Ere long, above the horizon’s verge appears The expected pomp. East, West, and North and South, Along the ancient thoroughfares, which lead From Paradise through spaces infinite, Besprinkled o’er with starry Cyclades, Down to the fiery palaces, wherein The solar Seraphs hold their sway, it comes— A long array of chariots superb, Harnessed to sun-engendered steeds, whose veins Are filled with fluid fire, the succulence Of the Heliacal pastures where they graze. Proudly the planetary Sultans rein Their haughty yokes, which underneath the shade Of solar gonfalons advance, their feet Unto the sound of lordly harmonies Uplifting. Within the eternal gates, Through wingëd throngs, o’er star-paved streets they ride, And by the Stream of Life, shadowed with palms, Unyoke their steeds, fettered with links of gold Infrangible and bright, to graze the banks; Then laving in the flood their giant limbs, They haste unto the glad festivities.