can tell how many worlds have gone
Before the dawn of this;
Or number all the worlds that yet
Our Maker in the void may set.
The Pleiades are so called from the Greek word pleein, to sail, and were in ancient times used by the mariners of that nation to guide them in their course. Virgil, who flourished twelve hundred years before the discovery of the magnetic needle, thus alludes to it—
"Then first on seas the shallow alder swam;
Then sailors quartered heaven, and found a name
For every fixed and every wandering star—
The Pleiades, Hyades, and the Northern Car."
This cluster of stars is more familiarly known as the Seven Stars, and are sometimes also called "The Virgins of Spring," because the sun enters it in the "season of flowers," or about the 18th of May. He who placed them in the firmament alludes to it when he demands "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades?"—i. e. can you make the flowers bloom, or prevent them unfolding their buds in their season? The Pleiades are situated in the shoulder of the Bull, and come to the meridian ten minutes before nine o'clock on the evening of the first of this month.