THE STARS.
47
Runn'st thou a tilt with Taurus? or dost rear Thy weapon for more stately tournament? 'Twere better, sure, to be a man of peace Among those quiet stars, than raise the rout Of rebel tumult, and of wild affray, Or feel ambition with its scorpion sting Transfix thy heel, and like Napoleon fall.
Fair queen, Cassiopeia! is thy court Well peopled with chivalric hearts, that pay Due homage to thy beauty? Thy levee, Is it still throng'd as in thy palmy youth? Is there no change of dynasty? No dread Of revolution 'mid the titled peers That age on age have served thee? Teach us how To make our sway perennial in the hearts Of those who love us, so that when our bloom And spring-tide wither, they in phalanx firm May gird us round and make life's evening bright.
But thou, O Sentinel, with sleepless eye, Guarding the northern battlement of heaven, For whom the seven pure spirits nightly burn Their torches, marking out, with glittering spire, Both hours and seasons on thy dial-plate, How turns the storm-tost mariner to thee! The poor lost Indian, having nothing left In his own ancient realm, not even the bonesOf his dead fathers, lifts his brow to thee,
