The Occultation Of Orion

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

    I saw, as in a dream sublime,
    The balance in the hand of Time.
    O'er East and West its beam impended;
    And day, with all its hours of light,
    Was slowly sinking out of sight,
    While, opposite, the scale of night
    Silently with the stars ascended.

    Like the astrologers of eld,
    In that bright vision I beheld
    Greater and deeper mysteries.
    I saw, with its celestial keys,
    Its chords of air, its frets of fire,
    The Samian's great Aeolian lyre,
    Rising through all its sevenfold bars,
    From earth unto the fixed stars.
    And through the dewy atmosphere,
    Not only could I see, but hear,
    Its wondrous and harmonious strings,
    In sweet vibration, sphere by sphere,
    From Dian's circle light and near,
    Onward to vaster and wider rings.
    Where, chanting through his beard of snows,
    Majestic, mournful, Saturn goes,
    And down the sunless realms of space
    Reverberates the thunder of his bass.

    Beneath the sky's triumphal arch
    This music sounded like a march,
    And with its chorus seemed to be
    Preluding some great tragedy.
    Sirius was rising in the east;
    And, slow ascending one by one,
    The kindling constellations shone.
    Begirt with many a blazing star,
    Stood the great giant Algebar,
    Orion, hunter of the beast!
    His sword hung gleaming by his side,
    And, on his arm, the lion's hide
    Scattered across the midnight air
    The golden radiance of its hair.

    The moon was pallid, but not faint;
    And beautiful as some fair saint,
    Serenely moving on her way
    In hours of trial and dismay.
    As if she heard the voice of God,
    Unharmed with naked feet she trod
    Upon the hot and burning stars,
    As on the glowing coals and bars,
    That were to prove her strength, and try
    Her holiness and her purity.

    Thus moving on, with silent pace,
    And triumph in her sweet, pale face,
    She reached the station of Orion.
    Aghast he stood in strange alarm!
    And suddenly from his outstretched arm
    Down fell the red skin of the lion
    Into the river at his feet.
    His mighty club no longer beat
    The forehead of the bull; but he
    Reeled as of yore beside the sea,
    When, blinded by Oenopion,
    He sought the blacksmith at his forge,
    And, climbing up the mountain gorge,
    Fixed his blank eyes upon the sun.

    Then, through the silence overhead,
    An angel with a trumpet said,
    "Forevermore, forevermore,
    The reign of violence is o'er!"
    And, like an instrument that flings
    Its music on another's strings,
    The trumpet of the angel cast
    Upon the heavenly lyre its blast,
    And on from sphere to sphere the words
    Re-echoed down the burning chords,--
    "Forevermore, forevermore,
    The reign of violence is o'er!"