Keep your face to the sun. I love you, O sun. But I too am a sun. Sometimes I think I light you: that you dont light me. That I each day rekindle your expiring fires. That if I did not come up in the morning you would not come up. That you do not appear at the horizon greeting the world. That I appear. That you do not cross the heavens glorifying your unrivalled passage and sanctifying your retrospect with the matchless twilight. That I cross the heavens. That all the majesty and the wonder inheres to me. That I do not depend upon you. That you depend upon me. That Persia did not worship you. That Persia worshipped me. That after all you are only the form while I am the substance. That you might be blotted out. That no harm would come to man. But that if I was blotted out the fate of man would be sealed in annihilation. That I have ejected you from the heavens and assumed your place. That you no longer rule, godstrong on a celestial throne. That I rule, man-potent in the hum of the common street. That the farms and the orchards do not look to you for fructification. That they look to me. That all harvests are my harvests. Harvests of fields as well as harvests of hearts. Harvests of justice as well as harvests of things. Harvests of ideals as well as harvests of deeds. That the supreme life is not there with you in the orbits of the heavens. That they are here with me in the twists and turns of alleys and pikes. I see now O sun that it is important to be a sun but that it is more important to be a man. That it is right to shine like a sun but that it is more than right to shine like a lover. That everything whatever seen or unseen is great and awes me. But that there is something neither seen nor unseen that stirs me to mightier results. That it is no mistake to make much of your genial flame: that you give life without question and cannot be denied your pay. That it is still less a mistake to make more of my precedent endowments: that they give ampler life without question and cannot be denied their pay. The pay of the sun is the pay of the crops. Is the pay of houses. Is the pay of dividends. Is the pay of profit and loss. The pay of my dreams is the pay of love. Is the pay of men and women and children. Is the pay of immortality. I too O sun get down on my knees to you. I too O sun stand erect honoring you. I too O sun gather with the crowds acknowledging your first causes. I too O sun let no rival shame my tribute. I too O sun call you God. And you, O sun, do you realizing yourself admit me? You too O sun: do you get down on your knees honoring me? Do you O sun gathering with the stars and the wheat and the factories acknowledge my first causes? Do you O sun bringing tribute do as much for me as any other and more? Do you O sun call me God? I have said of you O sun: you feed my body. Do you say of me O sun: you feed my soul? I have said to my darling comrades the lands and seas over gasping for life: Keep your face to the sun.