shepherds and Arabian nomads of old. They Winter 

 gave the familiar or beautiful names of love Stars, 

 or intimate life, and in exchange the taciturn 

 face of heaven lost its terrifying menace of 

 silence, and the Night became a comrade, 

 became the voice of the poets, of the sages, 

 of the prophets and seers, the silver gateways 

 of the Unknown. 



The Hunter, the Herdsman, the Bear- 

 Watcher, the Driver of the Wain — how much 

 more we love Bootes, or, as Chaucer called 

 the constellation, 'ye sterres of Arctour,' 

 because of these simple names. The Herds- 

 man, the Hunter, . . . the words strike the 

 primitive music. The youth of the world is 

 in them. In these few letters what infinite 

 perspectives, what countless images. The 

 Golden Age lies hid in their now impene- 

 trable thickets. Through their branches we 

 may look at the tireless hunter of to-day on 

 the interminable pampas, at the bowed trailer 

 in the dim savannahs of the Amazon, at the 

 swarthy nomad on the wastes of Sahara guard- 

 ing his camels like ships becalmed in a vast 

 sea of sand, or may see the solitary mountain- 

 shepherd in the hill-wildernesses of Spain or 

 Italy, or the Northern herdsman toiling 

 against wind and snow on our Gaelic hills. 



Here also is the romance of the stars, as 



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