THE GREAT NEBULA IN ORION. 79 



as he sets, does not exactly correspond with the image 

 presented in that fine passage in Maud : 



I arose, and all by myself, in my own dark garden ground, 

 Listening now to the tide, in its broadflung shipwrecking roar, 

 Now to the scream of a maddened beach dragged down by the wave, 

 Walked in a wintry wind, by a ghastly glimmer, and found 

 The shining Daffodil dead, and Orion low in his grave ; 



and again, towards the end of the poem : 



It fell on a time of year 



When the face of night is fair on the dewy downs, 

 And the shining Daffodil dies, and the charioteer 

 And starry Gemini hang like glorious crowns 

 Over Orion s grave low down in the West. 



I would not, however, for one moment be understood 

 as finding fault with these passages of Tennyson s finest 

 poem. Detached from the context, the image is un 

 doubtedly faulty ; but there is a correctness in the very 

 incorrectness of the image, pla-ced as it is in the mouth 

 of one 



Eaging alone as his father raged in his mood ; 



brooding evermore on his father s self-murder : 



On a horror of shattered limbs .... 

 Mangled and flattened and crushed. 



Let us pass on, however, to the subject of our paper. 



Beneath the three bright stars which form the belt 

 of Orion, are several small stars, ranged, when Orion is 

 in the south, in a vertical direction. These form the 

 sword of the giant. On a clear night it is easy to see 

 that the middle star of the sword presents a peculiarity 

 of appearance : it shines as through a diffused haze. 



