XXIII. The Ninth Sphere

Selected Religious Poems of Solomon ibn Gabirol, tr. by Israel Zangwill, [1923], at sacred-texts.com

XXIII.

O Lord, who shall search out Thy profundities?
For Thou hast set apart above the sphere of the constellations
The sphere that is ninth in order,
That encompasseth all the spheres and their creatures,
Wherein they are closed up,
Which driveth all the stars of heaven and their planets
From the east to the west in the might of its movement.
Once a day it bows down in the west to the King who enthroned it, p. 100
And all the creatures of the universe in its midst are as a grain of mustard in the vast ocean
From the mighty vastness of its breadth.
Yet all this and its greatness are accounted as nothing and naught
By the side of the greatness of its Creator and King,
And all its sublimities and grandeur
"Are vain and void in comparison with Him."