C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
The Sun-God’s Palace
By Ovid (43 B.C.–18 A.D.)
S
And fiery carbuncle, its roof inlaid
With ivory, rose the palace of the sun,
Approached by folding gates with silver sheen
Radiant; material priceless, yet less prized
For its own worth than what the cunning head
Of Mulciber thereon had wrought: the globe
Of earth, the seas that wash it round, the skies
That overhang it. ’Mid the waters played
Their gods cærulean. Triton with his horn
Was there, and Proteus of the shifting shape,
And old Ægeon, curbing with firm hand
The monsters of the deep. Her Nereids there
Round Doris sported, seeming, some to swim,
Some on the rocks their tresses green to dry,
Some dolphin-borne to ride; nor all in face
The same, nor different;—so should sisters be.
Earth showed her men, and towns, and woods, and beasts,
And streams, and nymphs, and rural deities;
And over all the mimic heaven was bright
With the twelve Zodiac signs, on either valve
Of the great portal figured,—six on each.