Poems by Sir Alfred C. Lyall :: :: University of Virginia Library

“By this the Northerne wagoner had set
His sevenfold teme behind the stedfast starre
That was in Ocean waves yet never wet,
But firme is fixt, and sendeth light from farre
To all who in the wide deepe wandering arre—
Faerie Queene.

In the early spring, as the nights grow shorter,
Some clear cold eve when the clouds are high,
Just as you're going to bed, my daughter,
Linger, and look at the northern sky;

There you will see, if the stars you're wise in,
Over the edge of the darkened plain

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One by one in the heavens uprising
The seven bright beacons of Charles's Wain.

All the night long you may watch them turning,
Round in their course by the polar star;
Slowly they sink and at dawn are burning
Low on the line of the world afar.

Often they guide me, by dim tracks wending,
In the evenings late, to an Indian tent;
Or the stars, as I wake, are to earth descending,
Just as they touch it, the night is spent.

Then, as they dip, I may take their warning,
Saddle and ride in the silent air;
Swiftly they vanish, and cometh the morning,
Cometh the day with its noise and glare.

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But the Wain's last lustre fitfully glances
O'er shadowy camels, who softly pace,
On the watchman's fire, and the horsemen's lances,
Or a wayside mere with a still wan face.

Thus, when you look at the seven stars yonder
Think, nor in years that will come, forget,
Here in the dark how often I wander,
Sleep when they rise, and start as they set.

In the West there is clanging of clocks from the steeple,
Ringing of bells and rushing of train;
In the East the journeys of simple people
Are timed and lighted by Charles's Wain.