HYMN TO THE NORTH STAR. 121 



with greater certainty upon the direction of this star, than 

 upon the magnetic needle. 



Hymn to the North Star. 



The sad and solemn night 

 Has yet her multitude of cheerful fires ; 



The glorious host of light 

 Walk the dark hemisphere till she retires : 

 All through her silent watches gliding slow, 

 Her constellations come, and round the heavens, and go. 



Day, too, hath many a star 

 To grace his gorgeous reign, as bright as they : 



Through the blue fields afar, 

 Unseen, they follow in his flaming way. 

 Many a bright lingerer, as the eve grows dim. 

 Tells what a radiant troop arose and set with him. 



And thou dost see them rise, 

 Star of the Pole ! and thou dost see them set. 



Alone in thy cold skies, 

 Thou keep'st thy old unmoving station yet, 

 Nor join'st the dances of that glittering train, 

 Nor dip'st thy virgin orb in the blue western main 



There, at morn's rosy birth. 

 Thou lookest meekly through the kindling air. 



And eve, that round the earth 

 Chases the day, beholds thee watching there ; 

 There noontide finds thee, and the hour that calls 

 The shapes of polar flame to scale heaven's azure walls 



On thy unaltering blaze 

 The half-wrecked mariner, his compass lost, 



Fixes his steady gaze, 

 And steers, undoubting, to the friendly coast ; 

 And they who stray in perilous wastes, by night. 

 Are glad when thou dost shine to guide their footsteps 

 right. 



And, therefore, bards of old. 

 Sages, and hermits of the solemn wood 



Did in thy beams behold 

 A beauteous type of that unchanging good, 

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