The Winter Stars, Archibald Lampman, 1861-1899 Across the iron-bound silence of the night A keen wind fitfully creeps, and far away The northern ridges glimmer faintly bright, Like hills on some dead planet hard and gray. Divinely from the icy sky look down The deathless stars that sparkle overhead, The Wain, the Herdsman, and the Northern Crown, And yonder, westward, large and balefully red, Arcturus, brooding over fierce resolves : Like mystic dancers in the Arctic air The troops of the Aurora shift and spin : The Dragon strews his bale-fires, and within His trailing and prodigious loop involves The lonely Pole Star and the Lesser Bear.