I saw in dreams a constellation strange,
Thwarting the night; its big stars seemed to range
Northward across the zenith, and to keep
Calm footing along heaven's ridge-pole high,
While round the pole the sullen Bear did creep
And dizzily the wheeling spheres went by.
They from their watch-towers in the topmost sky
Looked down upon the rest,
Nor eastward swerved nor west,
Though Procyon's candle dipped below the verge,
And the great twins of Leda 'gan decline
Toward the horizon line,
And prone Orion, sprawling headlong, urge
His flight into the far Pacific surge.
I heard a voice which said: "Those wonders bright
Are hung not on the hinges of the night;
But set to vaster harmonies, they run
Straight on, and turn not with the turning sphere,
Nor make an orbit about any sun.
No glass can track the courses that they steer,
By what dark paths they vanish and appear.
The starry flocks that still
Are climbing heaven's hill
Will pasture westward down its sloping lawn;
But yon wild herd of planets,—who can say
Through what far fields they stray,
Around what focus their ellipse is drawn,
Whose shining makes their transcendental dawn?"
I told my vision to a learned man,
Who said: "On no celestial globe or plan
Can those unset, unrisen stars be found.
How might such uncomputed motions be
Among the ordered spheres? Heaven's clock is wound
To keep one time. Idle our dreams, and we,
Blown by the wind, as the light family
Of leaves." But still I dream,
And still those planets seem
Through heaven their high, unbending course to take;
And a voice cries: "Freedom and Truth are we,
And Immortality:
God is our sun." And though the morning break,
Across my soul still plays their shimmering wake.