Pleiades

In astronomy, the Pleiades (/ˈplaɪ.ədiːz/ or /ˈpliː.ədiːz/), or or Seven Sisters (Messier 45 or M45), is an open star cluster containing middle-aged hot B-type stars located in the constellation of Taurus. It is among the nearest star clusters to Earth and is the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky. The celestial entity has several meanings in different cultures and traditions.

Quotes

 * Sorted alphabetically by author or source

Faint as a drift of steam From some tall chimney-stack;
 * Last night I saw the Pleiades again,
 * Arthur Adams, The Pleiades


 * Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion.
 * Amos 5:8

and the chambers of the south.
 * Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades,
 * Job 9:9

or loose the bands of Orion?
 * Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades,
 * Job 38:31

it behoveth you to be in close communion one with the other, at one both in body and soul, till ye match the Pleiades or a string of lustrous pearls.
 * It behoveth you to seek agreement and to be united;
 * 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Selections from the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá p. 85

Seven Sisters, she hears her distant Sisters.
 * Pleiades callin' her home
 * Jimmy Buffett, Banana Wind (1996)Desdemona's Building a Rocket Ship

My tongue was a filling estuary, My palate hung with starlight: As I tasted the salty Pleiades Orion dipped his foot into the water.
 * Our shells clacked on the plates.
 * Seamus Heaney, Oysters

Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades?
 * Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him
 * Edwin Markham, The Man With the Hoe (1898)


 * The Pleiades are an extraordinarily beautiful and brilliant star cluster in the constellation of Taurus. I have a large picture of them hanging in my recording studio, and sometimes when I look at this picture, I am inspired to compose a certain kind of music, which is very different from the music I usually compose, and very different from anything I have ever heard before. This album is a collection of those pieces.;
 * Gerald Jay Markoe, From the insert of the 1989 album Music From The Pleiades

I promised you I'd set them to verse, so I'd always remember
 * Though all I knew of the rote universe were those Pleiades, loosed in December,
 * Joanna Newsom, Ys (2006) Emily

Comin' from a space to teach you of the Pleiades.
 * Can I get two maybe even three of these,
 * Red Hot Chili Peppers, Can't Stop

Glitter like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid.
 * Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade,
 * Alfred Tennyson, Locksley Hall


 * The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious, They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in apparition, Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the Pleiades shall emerge, They are immortal…
 * Walt Whitman, in Leaves of Grass, "On the Beach at Night" (1871; 1881)


 * Something there is more immortal even than the stars, (Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,) '''Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter Longer than sun or any revolving satellite, Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades.
 * Walt Whitman, in Leaves of Grass, "On the Beach at Night" (1871; 1881)