A MAY NIGHT'S STAR PAGEANT 



with it Jupiter's. The heroic figure of Orion is 

 going fast, the most tremendous thing human eyes 

 have looked up at since the angel came clothed with 

 a cloud, the rainbow his crown, and his face like the 

 sun's. When last I noticed Orion before full night, 

 he was sunk to the sword belt, and now he is almost 

 out of sight at dark, whilst Sirius is on the very 

 edge of the horizon less than half an hour after 

 sunset. Clustered Pleiades, straggling Aries, and 

 the mighty square of Pegasus, those glittering star 

 groups which we have watched so often during 

 months past, have disappeared too, as the days 

 have lengthened, and now after sundown we 

 look to the south and east on a very different 

 array. 



The pageant of to-night, even with the Great 

 Bear hanging right above, one pointer of his pointing 

 eternally the Pole Star, another Arcturus, is not so 

 sublime as that we watched a few weeks ago. The 

 serpentine length of Hydra is uncoiled across the 

 sky, carrying with it the two distinct, clear-cut little 

 constellations mighty, unconnected universes per- 

 haps the Cup and the Crow. These can show 

 nothing comparable with Orion and his retinue. 

 Nor can the Virgin who follows, though her chief 

 gem is of an intense and lovely blue, nor high 

 Herdsman, nor vague form of Hercules following 

 Serpent and Crown. But before ten o'clock there 

 comes up from the east the most brilliant orb for 

 a late April and May sky, Mars, yellow tinged 

 with just a fancy of red. This is the beautiful 



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