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.