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Monday, March 21, 2016

Orion

Orion

There you rise yet,
My dear old friend Orion,
Huntsman of the winter sky,
Coursing now from east to south at twilight,

With your bow-hand high,
With robes girt up
Into star-silvered girdle;
You turn upon your half-bent knee.


Was it your form
Which Praxiteles saw
In winter skies of golden years,
And set his chisel to the task?

Was it your grace
He gave Olympian Hermes
And Apollo, still renowned
In legend and Athenian marble?

Legends slumber, marble wastes;
Yet still I see you, dear Orion,
In other age, and in another world;
Between the mountains of the sun

You live at twilight,
Still glorious and young,
Unwearied and unchanging,
In purple skies above the moon.

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