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Our seeming deviations all subserving

The perfect orbit round the central throne.

...

The night wind moans. The Austral wilds are round me.

The loved who live—ah, God! how few they are!

I looked above; and Heaven in mercy found me

This parable of comfort in a star.

J. Brunton Stephens (Convict Once and other Poems).

The “Dark Companion” is no doubt the star known as the “Companion of Sirius.” Certain peculiarities in the motion of Sirius led Bessel in 1844 to the belief that it had an obscure companion, with which it was in revolution. The position of the companion having been ascertained by calculation, it was at last found in 1862. It is equal in mass to our sun but is obscured by the brilliancy of Sirius, which is the brightest of the fixed stars. Brunton Stephens’ poem was published in Melbourne in 1873.

SEQUEL TO “MY QUEEN”

“When and where shall I earliest meet her,” etc.

Yes, but the years run circling fleeter,

Ever they pass me—I watch, I wait—

Ever I dream, and awake to meet her;