From an open plain, the boundless sea, or the solitude of a mountain, the stars seem to hold their greatest appeal. If one knows the name of a star or two, one will find, as in "The Wanderer," a comradeship that is comforting. [Figure 129: Relative positions of the constellations "grouped about the pole," those appearing in "the story of Andromeda," the "Spring and Summer Pageant," and the "story of Orion and Taurus, the Bull."] Bayard Taylor, who often wrote about the stars, looked up, in a foreign land, and saw "Above the palms, the peaks of pearly gray," Canopus, a star of the southern hemisphere, only surpassed by Sirius. "An urn of light, a golden-hearted torch, Voluptuous, drowsy-throbbing mid the stars, As, incense-fed, from Aphrodite's porch Lifted to beacon Mars." Then-- "Ah, bliss to lie beside the jasper urn Of founts, and through the open arabesque To watch Canopus burn!" Let us face the heavens and dream for a moment, forget the earth--let it drop away--just drift and dream. "Ring out, ye crystal spheres! Once bless our human ears (If ye have power to charm our senses so;) And let your silver chime Move in melodious time, (And let the base of Heaven's deep organ blow;) And with your ninefold harmony Make up full concert with angelic symphony." --_Milton._ How rapturously the poets have dwelt upon the music of the crystalline spheres! How sad that the volume of it was so excessive that the ear could not hear it! And great it must have been with the whirr of a globe so huge that it contained eight concentric crystalline spheres whirling around every twenty-four hours and resounding with the stars as they rolled in their orbits. This idea of the crystal spheres of ancient astronomy was beautifully described by Milton in "Paradise Lost." Milton believed without a doubt in the theories of Copernicus who taught that the sun was a center of a system of planets which revolved about it at various distances, but he probably used this old conception of the universe because it gave him more artistic freedom in the writing of his great epic poem. Let us pursue this fascinating theme, while drifting and dreaming, and see in what way the great poet painted it in as a background for his story. Milton pictured the boundless cosmos as divided into two parts--the "resplendent Kingdom of Heaven" which rested in brightness above, and the "turbulent darkness of Chaos" which surged in blackness below. Our "cheerful sun-illumined Universe" was thought to be contained in an opaque sphere which hung from the floor of Heaven by a golden chain. At the rebellion of Satan and his rebel followers, God hurled them through the floor of Heaven and down through the darkness of immeasurable space to a place in Chaos hollowed out to receive them. This place contained such dire discomforts that Satan in his wrath swore revenge.