When summer sunlight floods the deep,
The fairest stars of all the heaven
Climb up, unseen, the effulgent steep.

Orion girds him with a flame;
And, king-like, from the eastward seas,
Comes Aldebaran, with his train
Of Hyades and Pleiades.

In far meridian pride, the Twins
Build, side by side, their luminous thrones;
And Sirius and Procyon pour
A splendor that the day disowns.

And stately Leo, undismayed,
With fiery footstep tracks the Sun,
To plunge adown the western blaze,
Sublimely lost in glories won.

I know, if I were called to keep
Pale morning watch with Grief and Pain,
Mine eyes should see their gathering might
Rise grandly through the gloom again.

And when the Winter Solstice holds
In his diminished path the Sun,--
When hope, and growth, and joy are o'er,
And all our harvesting is done,--

When, stricken, like our mortal Life,