Hymn To the Sun

Here is another prayer we said, just as the sun was appearing over the horizon on Easter Sunday morning.

Maris was there with us in spirit, and it was easy to surround him with the radiance of this prayer and the one by Burton.

A Hymn In Praise of Aten
written by
King Akhenaten, c.1365 BC

Thy dawning is beautiful in the horizon of heaven
O living Aten, beginning of life!
When thou risest in the eastern horizon of heaven
Thou fillest every land with thy beauty,
For thou art beautiful, great, glittering, high over the earth,
Thy rays, they encompass the lands, even all thou hast made.
Thou art Ra, and thou hast carried them all away captive;
Thou bindest them by thy love.
Though thou art afar, thy rays are on earth;
Though thou art on high, thy footprints are the day.

When thou settest in the western horizon of heaven
The world is in darkness like the dead,
They sleep in their chambers
Their heads are wrapped up,
Their nostrils stopped and none seeth the other,
Stolen are all their things that are under their heads,
While they know it not.
Every lion cometh forth from his den,
All serpents, they sting.
Darkness reigns.
The world is in silence
He that made them has gone to rest in his horizon.

Bright is the earth,
When thou risest in the horizon,
Wwhen thou shinest as Aten by day.
The darkness is banished,
Wwhen thou sendest forth thy rays,
The Two Lands are in daily festivity,
Awake and standing upon their feet,
For thou hast raised them up,
Their limbs bathed they take their clothing;
Their arms uplifted in adoration to thy dawning,
Then in all the world they do their work.

All cattle rest upon their herbage,
All trees and plants flourish,
The birds flutter in the marshes,
Their wings uplifted in adoration to thee,
All the sheep dance upon their feet,
All winged things fly,
They live when thou hast shone upon them.

Thou art he who createst the man-child in wwomen,
Who makest seed in man,
Who giveth life to the son in the body of his mother,
Who soothest him that he may not weep,
A nurse even in the womb.
Who giveth breath to animate every one that he maketh.

When the chicklet crieth in the egg-shell
Thou givest him breath therein, to preserve him alive.
When thou hast perfected him
That he may pierce the egg,
He cometh forth from the egg,
To chirp with all his might;
He runneth about upon his two feet,
When he hath come forth therefrom.

How manifold are all thy works!
They are hidden from before us
O thou sole god, whose powers no other possesseth.