# Slumber, watcher — What am I?

This is the start of a poem I've always loved. If you don't know the source, can you guess the answer?

Slumber, watcher, 'till the spheres
Six and twenty thousand years
Hath revolved, and I return
To the spot whence now I burn


Without googling the words...what am I?

Is it:

Polaris, or Pole Star, or maybe Vega.

Slumber, watcher, 'till the spheres

Sleep (night sky), astronomer, planets, moons and stars.

Six and twenty thousand years

Because the Earth's axis wobbles, our perception of north gradually shifts to different stars over a 26,000-year cycle. Vega was the North Star several thousand years ago, and it will regain that status in about 12,000 years. From Space.

Hath revolved, and I return

Celestial bodies orbit.

To the spot whence now I burn

Stars and comets burn.

• Well, I was always a fan of...this science, so I knew about that fact even before I read the poem. I guess I'm looking for others who know it too. (I'll tell the source when someone tells me how to put a spoiler mask in a comment.) – Shawn V. Wilson Jan 29 at 7:20
• @ShawnV.Wilson You cannot add a spoiler mask in a comment. People here use rot13 algorithm to Caesar cypher rhe message. Go to rot13.com (there are other sites like this out there), type (or paste) your text in the upper text area, copy it from the lower textarea and put it in your comment. Maybe with a reference to rot13 algorithm. rot13(Yvxr guvf). To decypher just paste the cyphereds text in the upper textarea and the original will be in the lower one. – yunzen Jan 29 at 9:58
• @ShawnV.Wilson;be yvxr guvf – JonMark Perry Jan 29 at 10:11
• Wouldn't this apply equally well to rot13(nal bgure fgne rkprcg, sbe boivbhf ernfbaf, gur fha)? [EDITED because, duh, I wrote "rot13" but then didn't actually rot13 the contents] – Gareth McCaughan Jan 29 at 14:11
• @GarethMcCaughan; depends on the distance of the star, and the wobble is different on the equator. – JonMark Perry Jan 29 at 14:13