Orion's belt and sword of power
Flash brightly, through the clear, keen night,
And bring to mind one happy hour,
Like some wild glacier's beauteous flower
Abloom amid the Arctic white.
It was no joy of summer time,
Of flowering hedge, of breezes warm:
Love gives all seasons one charmed prime;
Softly to love the fierce winds chime
Alean on the belovèd arm.
So passed we down the wide bleak street;
The lights flashed wildly mid the gloom,
The snow-path crisped beneath our feet,
But love's dear converse kept the sweet
Key-note of woods in leafy June.
The wildest, bleakest corner turned,
Orion caught that master eye
For which the Southern cross had burned,
Which had through ocean's leisure learned
The mystic groups of every sky.
The winds piped on; Orion's stars
We counted, flashing through the night;
Thenceforth not Venus, not red Mars,
I watch at night through lattice bars,
But grave Orion's girded might.
Strange stars! above a grass-grown tomb,
I ne'er have seen, you nightly shine;
Watch gently through the midnight gloom
Where, waiting God's dread trump of doom,
Lies that dear dust I claimed as mine.
