Our twirling orb is spinning in space
The planet Earth in warm embrace
In a gravity dance with our mother Sol
Bathed in light from pole to pole

Invisible lines doth define our girth
Encircling round our planet Earth
Changing circles are lines of latitude
Constant circles define our longitude

Hot and humid tropics in middle latitudes do lie
And circumnavigating sailors on the seas do ply
And between two special latitudinal lines are born
The limiting lines of Cancer and Capricorn

Two sailors on two ships do walk
Upon the Vernal or Autumnal Equinox
One on Cancer the other on Capricorn
Plying the decks of their ships so worn

Their antiscian* shadows cast upon the Earth
Are divided by the equator’s girth
One cast North away from solar ray
The other cast South on the very same day

(Adj. – refers to the Antiscii (those who live on the same meridian but on the opposite side of the equator so that their shadows at noon fall in opposite directions.)