It may be a carriage, a long-tongued cart.  
 Carol, carolus; it is Charles’s Wain, 
 the cart of Carolus Magnus, Charlemagne. 
 And in China a chariot again, a triumphal car 
 for the pole-star god, Shang-ti, with winged attendents. 
  
 III 
 Praying, some face Mecca; some face the East, 
 the sunrise, the new day dawning, the future. 
 The Son of Heaven faced north, saluting the pole-star, 
 his double: the unchanging, unwobbling Center. Planets, 
 moon and sun and the stars that partner them 
 all pass from sight and return, but there at the axis 
 eternity is unmoved and out of time’s reach.