A THEME FOR A POET. 415 



instance, are the worlds revolving round the great sun of 

 Alpha, in Aries ; this great sun is white, but a smaller sun is 

 constantly visible in the sky, whose azure reflections cover as 

 with "a diaphanous veil" the various objects exposed to its 

 rays. Number 26 in Ceta presents the same conditions, 

 which are those, too, of a great number of the most brilliant 

 stars. In the case of the worlds gravitating round the prin- 

 cipal world of these binary systems, the originative white 

 lustre would appear to create the infinite varieties noticeable 

 upon the earth, with the distinction, of course, that an azure 

 gleam constantly issues from the other sun ; but for the planets 

 gravitating round the latter, the predominant colouring will be 

 blue, tempered by the action of the remoter white sun. 



And just as white suns have blue suns for their companions, 

 so have red suns yellow, or vice versa. What a strange and 

 curious radiance like that of "a dome of many-coloured 

 glass " must be shed upon a planet by its red and green or 

 yellow and blue suns ! What striking contrasts, what fairy- 

 like changes, must be produced by a red day and a green day 

 succeeding alternately to a white day, or a day of darkness ! 

 Why do not our poets take up such a theme as this? Can 

 they find aught more remarkable or more eery in the dreams 

 of their imagination ? 



Supposing that these wonderful spheres are surrounded, like 

 Jupiter or Saturn, by a ring of satellites, what can be their 

 aspect when lit up by several suns, each sun a source of 

 different-coloured light ? 



This one, we may imagine, will be divided into hemispheres, 



