When I hear the song, I add "except those under the Southern Cross" in mental parentheses... but an extra line is hard to squeeze in there...

But I do love the song -- the melody is one of my favorites And that big dipper line reminds me of this quote:

We gaze up at the same stars, the sky covers us all, the same universe compasses us. What does it matter what practical systems we adopt in our search for the truth? Not by one avenue only can we arrive at so tremendous a secret.

Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (A.D. c. 340-c. 402), Roman senator. Letter, written 384, to the Christian Emperor Valentinian II, pleading for the continuation of pagan ceremonies (published in Finley Hooper and Matthew Schwartz, Roman Letters: History from a Personal Point of View, ch. 10, 1991).

The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations is licensed from Columbia University Press. Copyright © 1993 by Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

Maybe we could replace "Great Big Dipper" with "stars so brilliant"...