so imposing and grandiloquent an abstraction The 

 as < Imbrifer ' ! Rainy 



Truly a fit Constellation of late autumn, H y ades - 

 Capricornus. 



" Thy Cold, for Thou o'er Winter Signs dost reign, 

 Pullst back the Sun . . ." 



as a bygone astronomical versifier has it. 

 Perhaps he had in mind Horace's 'tyrannus 

 Hesperiae Capricornus undae,' who in turn may 

 have recalled an earlier poet still, English'd 

 thus : 



" . , . Then grievous blasts 

 Break southward on the Sea, when coincide 

 The Goat and Sun : and then a heaven-sent cold.'' 



Many of us will remember with a thrill 

 Milton's magnificent image 



"... Thence down amain 

 As deep as Capricorn," 



and others will recall the often-quoted line of 

 Dante in the Paradiso (relative to the Sun's 

 entrance into Capricorn between January 18 

 and February 14). 



" The horn of the Celestial Goat doth touch the Sun.'" 



May and November are the two * fatal ' 

 months with the Celtic peoples : the first 



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