s: Of bitterness in their milk that gives a relish


s: And makes all sweet; and that's philosophy, John.


s: Now--these spring onions! Would his Excellency


s: I hate their arrogant little insect ways!


s: One that, by virtue of a half-grown brain,


s: Lives in a silly world of his own making,


s: A bubble, blown by himself, in which he flits


s: And dizzily bombinates, chanting 'I, I, I,'


s: For there is nothing in the heavens above


s: Or the earth, or hell beneath, but goes to swell


s: His personal pronoun. Bring him some dreadful news


s: His dearest friend is burned to death,--You'll see


s: A rubric, with red eyes. You'll see him use


s: The coffin for his pedestal, hear him mouth


s: Of love, it's 'I, I, I' Narcissus, love,


s: Myself, Narcissus, imaged in those eyes;


s: For all the love-notes that he sounds are made


s: After the fashion of passionate grasshoppers,


s: Nor does he learn to sound that mellower 'You,'


s: Until his bubble bursts and leaves him drowned,


s: But there's another kind, whose mind still moves


s: In vital concord with the soul of things;


s: So that it thinks in music, and its thoughts


s: Pulse into natural song. A separate voice,


s: And yet caught up by the surrounding choirs,


s: There, in the harmonies of the Universe,


s: Losing himself, he saves his soul alive."


s: "Afraid to put those Ducklings on to roast.


s: Your friend may miss his road; and, if he's late,


s: My little part of the music will be spoiled."--


s: "He won't, Susannah. Bad poets are always late.


s: Good poets, at times, delay a note or two;


s: But all the great are punctual as the sun.


s: What's that? He's early! That's his knock, I think!"--


s: "The Lord have mercy, John, there's nothing ready!


s: Take him into your study and talk to him,


s: Talk hard. He's come an hour before his time;


s: And I've to change my dress. I'll into the kitchen!"


s: With greetings; hand grasped hand; his Excellency


s: Forgot the careful prologue he'd prepared,


s: And made an end of mystery. He had brought


s: Who, hearing of new menaces to the light


s: In Europe, urged the illustrious Kepler now


s: To make his home in England. There, his thought


s: "I have moved in those old strongholds of the night,


s: And heard strange mutterings. It is not many years


s: Since Bruno burned. There's trouble brewing too,


s: For one you know, I think,--the Florentine


s: "They will not dare or need. Proof or disproof


s: Of those who, fifteen hundred years ago,


s: Had eyes and would not see? Eyes quickly close


s: "So be it. Other and younger eyes will see.


s: Perhaps that's why God gave the young a spice


s: Of devilry. They'll go look, while elders gasp;


s: And, when the Devil and Truth go hand in hand,


s: God help their enemies. You will send my thanks,


s: My grateful thanks, Sir Henry, to your king.


s: To-day I cannot answer you. I must think.


s: Would find it hard to leave her native land.


s: Their secret from Susannah, Kepler poured


s: His mind out, and the world's dead branches bloomed.


s: For, when he talked, another spring began


s: To which our May was winter; and, in the boughs


s: Of his delicious thoughts, like feathered choirs,


s: Bits of old rhyme, scraps from the Sabine farm,


s: Celestial phrases from the Shepherd King,


s: And fluttering morsels from Catullus sang.


s: Much was fantastic. All was touched with light


s: That only genius knows to steal from heaven.


s: He spoke of poetry, as the "flowering time


s: Of knowledge," called it "thought in passionate tune


s: With those great rhythms that steer the moon and sun;


s: Thought in such concord with the soul of things


s: That it can only move, like tides and stars,


s: And man's own beating heart, and the wings of birds,


s: In law, whose service only sets them free."


s: Therefore it often leaps to the truth we seek,


s: Clasping it, as a lover clasps his bride


s: In darkness, ere the sage can light his lamp.


s: And so, in music, men might find the road


s: To truth, at many a point, where sages grope.


s: To all the windings of the world's dark maze.


s: Himself had used it, partly proved it, too,


s: In his own book,--_the Harmonies of the World._


s: 'All that the years discover points one way


s: To this great ordered harmony," he said,


s: "Revealed on earth by music. Planets move


s: In subtle accord like notes of one great song


s: The Eternal Artist. There's no grief, no pain,


s: Can show you, somewhere in its golden scheme,


s: The use of all such discords; and, at last,


s: Their exquisite solution. Then darkness breaks


s: Through death to life, and evil builds up heaven.


s: Have you not heard, in some great symphony,


s: The victory of the soul? Have you not heard


s: Who thought me an infidel then, still smile at me


s: For trying to read the stars in terms of song,


s: Discern their orbits, measure their distances,


s: My folly at least revealed those three great laws;


s: To set in the great new temple of my God


s: My methods, doubtless, as the years go by,


s: And the world's wisdom shuts its music out.


s: The dust will gather on all my harmonies;


s: Glance at the musical phrases, and pass on,


s: Not troubling even to read one Latin page.


s: Yet they'll accept those great results as mine.


s: I call them mine. How can I help exulting,


s: Who climbed my ladder of music to the skies


s: And found, by accident, let them call it so,


s: Which built His world of music, those three laws:--


s: First, how the speed of planets round the sun


s: Next, that although they seem to swerve aside


s: From those plain circles of old Copernicus


s: Their paths were not less rhythmical and exact,


s: But followed always that most exquisite curve


s: In its most perfect form, the pure ellipse;


s: Third, that although their speed from point to point


s: Appeared to change, their radii always moved


s: Through equal fields of space in equal times.


s: Less full of beauty, less divine in truth,


s: Than their dull chaos? You, the poet will know


s: How, as those dark perplexities grew clear,


s: And old anomalous discords changed to song,


s: My whole soul bowed and cried, _Almighty God


s: These are Thy thoughts, I am thinking after Thee!_


s: The towers from which I hailed those three great laws.


s: How strange and far away it all seems now.


s: Yet, for a few sad years, before it fell


s: Who crept about its crumbling corridors,


s: And lit the fire of memory on its hearth."--


s: Wotton looked quickly up, "I think I have heard


s: Something of that. You mean poor Jeppe, his dwarf.


s: Fynes Moryson, at the Mermaid Inn one night


s: Showed a most curious manuscript, a scrawl


s: On yellow parchment, crusted here and there


s: With sea-salt, or the salt of those thick tears


s: Creatures like Jeppe, the crooked dwarf, could weep.


s: It had been found, clasped in a crooked hand,


s: Under the cliffs of Wheen, a crooked hand


s: That many a time had beckoned to passing ships,


s: Hoping to find some voyager who would take


s: And jeered at him, till Jeppe threw stones at them.


s: And now Jeppe, too, was dead, and one who knew


s: Fynes Moryson, had found him, and brought home


s: That curious crooked scrawl. Fynes Englished it


s: Out of its barbarous Danish. Thus it ran:


s: 'Master, have you forgotten Jeppe, your dwarf,


s: And feed from your own hand? The hall is dark,


s: And the sea-gulls crying round Uraniborg.


s: Because there is no fire upon the hearth,


s: The white sails dwindling into sea-gull's wings,


s: Then melting into foam, and all was dark.


s: I lay among the wild flowers on the cliff


s: And dug my nails into the stiff white chalk


s: And called you, Tycho Brahe. You did not hear;


s: But gulls and jackdaws, wheeling round my head,


s: Mocked me with _Tycho Brahe_, and _Tycho Brahe_!


s: And, now that they have driven you away,


s: I, that am only Jeppe,--the crooked dwarf,


s: You used to laugh at for his matted hair,


s: And head too big and heavy--take your pen


s: Here in your study. I will write it down


s: Of Scotland, and who knows, the mouse that gnawed


s: The lion free, may save you, Tycho Brahe.'"


s: "He is free now," said Kepler, "had he lived


s: He would have sent for Jeppe to join him there


s: At Prague. But death forestalled him, and your King.


s: The years in which he watched that planet Mars,


s: His patient notes and records, all were mine;


s: And, mark you, had he clipped or trimmed one fact


s: By even a hair's-breadth, so that his results


s: Made a pure circle of that planet's path


s: It might have baffled us for an age and drowned


s: All our new light in darkness. But he held


s: So comfortably have said, 'My instruments


s: Are crude and fallible. In so fine a point


s: Eyes may have erred, too. Why not acquiesce?


s: Why mar the tune, why dislocate a world,


s: For one slight clash of seeming fact with faith?'


s: But no, though stars might swerve, he held his course,


s: I added mine and saw, in one wild gleam,


s: Strange as the light of day to one born blind,


s: Those broken melodies into song again."--


s: "Faintly and far away, I, too, have seen


s: In music, and in verse, that golden clue


s: Whereof you speak," said Wotton. "In all true song,


s: That, in bad poets, wrings the neck of thought,


s: Far things and near, not in unnatural chains,


s: But in those true accords which still escape


s: The plodding reason, yet unify the world.


s: I caught some glimpses of this mystic power


s: On Tycho, and that great quatrain of yours--


s: But made it roughly mine in words like these:


s: Yet, as I trace those rhythmic spheres at night,


s: I stand before the Thunderer's throne on high


s: And feast on nectar in the halls of light.'_


s: My version lacks the glory of your lines


s: "Turned into Latin from old Ptolemy's Greek;


s: For, even in verse, half of the joy, I think,


s: Is just to pass the torch from hand to hand


s: An undimmed splendour. But, last night, I tried


s: That I was wandering in some distant world.


s: I have often dreamed it Once it was the moon.


s: I wrote that down in prose. When I am dead,


s: It may be printed. This was a fairer dream:


s: Could spread true wings for that delicious world;


s: And so I wrote it--for no eyes but mine,


s: Or 'twould be seized on, doubtless, as fresh proof


s: Madman to madman; for I, too, write verse."


s: Then Kepler, in a rhythmic murmur, breathed


s: His rich enchanted memories of that dream:


s: Swinging a lanthorn through that fragrant night.


s: Under those rose-red boughs of violet bloom,


s: On Hesper, as on earth, still held command;


s: I saw strange flocks of flowers like birds take flight;


s: Back to the world where once I thought me wise;


s: Silence a moment held them, loth to break


s: Said Wotton at last, "that songs can mount and fly


s: To truth; for this fantastic vision of yours


s: Either that slumbering knowledge of Socrates,


s: Or some strange premonition that the years


s: Will prove it true. This music leads us far


s: From all our creeds, except that faith in law.


s: Your quest for knowledge--how it rests on that!


s: How sure the soul is that if truth destroy


s: The temple, in three days the truth will build


s: In all things. Even your atheist builds his doubt


s: On that strange faith; destroys his heaven and God


s: In absolute faith that his own thought is true


s: To law, God's lanthorn to our stumbling feet;


s: And so, despite himself, he worships God,


s: For where true souls are, there are God and heaven."--


s: Said Kepler, "under the glittering Eastern sky,


s: The shepherd king looked up at those great stars,


s: Those ordered hosts, and cried _Caeli narrant


s: Who'd ape Lucretius, and believe themselves


s: Who, even in utter darkness, bowed his head,


s: To something nobler than the gods of Rome


s: The law, the music of these ordered worlds;


s: And straight deny the law's first postulate,


s: That out of nothingness nothing can be born,


s: Nor greater things from less. Can music rise


s: By chance from chaos, as they said that star


s: In Serpentarius rose? I told them, then,


s: That when I was a boy, with time to spare,


s: I played at anagrams. Out of my Latin name


s: _Johannes Keplerus_ came that sinister phrase


s: I tried again, but trusted it to chance.


s: I took some playing cards, and wrote on each


s: To shuffle them; and, at every shuffle, I read


s: The letters, in their order, as they came,


s: To see what meaning chance might give to them.


s: Wotton, the gods and goddesses must have laughed


s: To see the weeks I lost in studying chance;


s: For had I scattered those cards into the black


s: They'd still be playing at leap-frog in the dark,


s: And show no glimmer of sense. And yet--to hear


s: Those wittols talk, you'd think you'd but to mix


s: A bushel of good Greek letters in a sack


s: And shake them roundly for an age or so,


s: Those disputants what my wife had said. One night


s: With pondering on their atoms, I was called


s: To supper, and she placed before me there


s: A most delicious salad. 'It would appear,'


s: I thought aloud, 'that if these pewter dishes,


s: Green hearts of lettuce, tarragon, slips of thyme,


s: Slices of hard boiled egg, and grains of salt.


s: Had in a bottomless gulf been flying about


s: The sweet invisible hand of Happy Chance


s: My wife replied, 'but not so good as mine,


s: Broke in, "I've made a better one. The receipt


s: Came from the _Golden Lion_. I have dished


s: Ducklings and peas and all. Come, John, say grace."


s: (_Celeste, in the Convent at Arcetri, writes to her old lover at


s: My friend, my dearest friend, my own dear love,


s: I, who am dead to love, and see around me


s: The funeral tapers lighted, send this cry


s: Out of my heart to yours, before the end.


s: You told me once you would endure the rack


s: To save my heart one pang. O, save it now!


s: Last night there came a dreadful word from Rome


s: For my dear lord and father, summoning him


s: Before the inquisitors there, to take his trial


s: At threescore years and ten. There is a threat


s: You know me, too. You never will believe


s: Deny the Cross to which I nailed this flesh?


s: Could he, who, on the night when all those heavens


s: Opened above us, with their circling worlds,


s: Knelt with me, crushed beneath that weight of glory,


s: You'll not believe it. Neither would the Church,


s: Had not his enemies poisoned all the springs


s: And fountain-heads of truth. It is not Rome


s: That summons him, but Magini, Sizy, Scheiner,


s: That envy him his fame, and hate his works


s: Only five nights ago we walked together,


s: My father and I, here in the Convent garden;


s: And, as the dusk turned everything to dreams,


s: We dreamed together of his work well done


s: That even then, muttering above his book,


s: His enemies, those enemies whom the truth


s: Stings into hate, were plotting to destroy him.


s: Yet something shadowed him. I recall his words--


s: "The grapes are ripening. See, Celeste, how black


s: And heavy. We shall have good wine this year,"--


s: "Yes, all grows ripe," I said, "your life-work, too,


s: Your book is printed, and the new world born?"


s: He shook his head, a little sadly, I thought.


s: "Autumn's too full of endings. Fruits grow ripe


s: Never," I said, "for those who write their names


s: In heaven. Think, father, through all ages now


s: He stopped me, laid his hand upon my arm,


s: And standing in the darkness with dead leaves


s: Drifting around him, and his bare grey head


s: Shaken and low, he said like one in prayer,


s: "Celeste, beware of that. Say truth, not fame.


s: It springs from truth alone, the truth we live


s: In act and thought. I have looked up there and seen


s: Too many worlds to talk of fame on earth.


s: Fame, on this grain of dust among the stars,


s: The trumpet of a gnat that thinks to halt


s: The great sun-clusters moving on their way


s: In silence! Yes, that's fame, but truth, Celeste,


s: Truth and its laws are constant, even up there;


s: That's where one man may face and fight the world.


s: His weakness turns to strength. He is made one


s: Gate after gate swings back through all the heavens.


s: No sentry halts him, and no flaming sword.


s: A better word," I told him. "I'll say love."


s: He took my face between his hands and said--


s: His face all dark between me and the stars--


s: "What's love, Celeste, but this dear face of truth


s: Some twelve hours later, that this man whose soul


s: Was dedicate to Truth, was threatened now


s: Because to help him, you must understand him;


s: Who never heard his heart-beats as have I.


s: So let me tell you all--his quest for truth,


s: He made his enemies of those almost-minds


s: Who chanced upon some new thing in the dark


s: And could not see its meaning, for he saw,


s: So when he heard of that strange optic-glass


s: Which brought the distance near, he thought it out


s: When in their gorgeous robes the Senate stood


s: Scanning the bare blue sea that showed no speck


s: Of sail. Then, one by one, he bade them look;


s: And one by one they gasped, "a miracle."


s: Brown sails and red, a fleet of fishing boats,


s: See how the bright foam bursts around their bows!


s: See how the bare-legged sailors walk the decks!


s: Then, quickly looking up, as if to catch


s: The vision, ere it tricked them, all they saw


s: That all was trickery, but he bade them note


s: The colours of the boats, and count their sails.


s: Saw on the sky-line certain specks that grew,


s: Took form and colour; and, within an hour,


s: Their magic fleet came foaming into port.


s: Whereat old senators, wagging their white beards,


s: And plucking at golden chains with stiff old claws


s: Too feeble for the sword-hilt, squeaked at once:


s: "This glass will give us great advantages


s: Dazed with new beauty, gifted with new powers,


s: These old men dreamed of blood. This was the thought


s: To which all else must pander, if he hoped


s: Even for one hour to see those dull eyes blaze


s: And yet he humoured them. He stooped to them.


s: Promised them more advantages, and talked


s: As elders do to children. You may call it


s: Weakness, and yet could any man do more,


s: Alone, against a world, with such a trust


s: He has had some weanling truth to guard, has fought


s: Wherever he could, behind old fallen trees


s: Of superstition, or ruins of old thought.


s: Among the stars in favour with his prince,


s: That he was wrong in these things, and must pay


s: A dreadful penalty. But you must explore


s: His mind's great ranges, plains and lonely peaks


s: How could he talk to children, but in words


s: That children understand? Have not some said


s: That God Himself has made His glory dark


s: That filmed those old men's eyes. They did not hear


s: With that new power of bringing far things near.


s: My heart burned as I heard him; but they blinked


s: Like owls at noonday. Then I saw him turn,


s: Desperately, to humour them, from thoughts


s: As one who has looked on things too beautiful


s: To breathe aloud, "Come out, Celeste, and see


s: Looking along his outstretched hand, a star,


s: It was the star called Jupiter. And then


s: He bade me look again, but through his glass.


s: I feared to look at first, lest I should see


s: Some wonder never meant for mortal eyes.


s: He too, had felt the same, not fear, but awe,


s: Small as the smallest bead of mist that clings


s: To a spider's thread at dawn, the floating disk


s: And near it, with no disk that eyes could see,


s: Four needle-points of light, unseen before.


s: "The moons of Jupiter," he whispered low,


s: "I have watched them as they moved, from night to night;


s: A system like our own, although the world


s: Their fourfold lights and shadows make so strange


s: Must--as I think--be mightier than we dreamed,


s: And dwindle; yes, the heavens are opening now.


s: Perhaps up there, this night, some lonely soul


s: Gazes at earth, watches our dawning moon,


s: Before his enemies had provoked the wrath


s: Of Rome against him, he had given the name


s: The court of France to seek a lasting place


s: Even more brilliant, and to call it _Henri_


s: After the reigning and most brilliant prince


s: Of France. They did not wish the family name


s: Of Bourbon. This would dissipate the glory.


s: No, they preferred his proper name of Henri.


s: Weeping with laughter, never dreaming then


s: That this, this, this, could stir the little hearts


s: The blindness of the men who thought themselves


s: His enemies. The men who never knew him,


s: The men that had set up a thing of straw


s: And called it by his name, and wished to burn


s: Their image and himself in one wild fire.


s: Men? Were they men or children? They refused


s: Lest seeing might persuade them. Even that sage,


s: Holding his breath there, like a fractious child


s: Until his cheeks grew purple, and the veins


s: Were bursting on his brow, swore he would die


s: Not long thereafter, kept his word and died,


s: Died of his own pent rage, as I have heard.


s: Whereat my lord and father shook his head


s: And, smiling, somewhat sadly--oh, you know


s: That smile of his, more deadly to the false


s: Than even his reasoning--murmured, _"Libri, dead,


s: He swore he would not look at them from earth,


s: I hope he saw them on his way to heaven."_


s: It was a trick, they said. He had made a glass


s: To fool the world with false appearances.


s: Perhaps the lens was flawed. Perhaps his wits


s: Were wandering. Anything rather than the truth


s: Which might disturb the mighty in their seat.


s: "You, Kepler, are the first, whose open mind


s: The things which I have seen. With you for friend,


s: The abuse of the multitude will not trouble me.


s: Jupiter stands in heaven and will stand,


s: Many have seen the moons. These witnesses


s: Are silent and uncertain. Do you wonder?


s: Most of them could not, even when they saw them,


s: Distinguish Mars from Jupiter. Shall we side


s: Picture the leaders of our college here.


s: A thousand times I have offered them the proof


s: Of their own eyes. They sleep here, like gorged snakes,


s: Refusing even to look at planets, moons,


s: Is all in books, and that the truth is found


s: But in comparing texts. How you would laugh


s: Before the Grand Duke, trying to tear down


s: And argue the new planets out of heaven,


s: Now by his own weird logic and closed eyes


s: For, when the giant reels beneath some stroke


s: Of fate, the buzzing clouds will swoop upon him,


s: Cluster and feed upon his bleeding wounds,


s: And do what midges can to sting him blind.


s: These human midges have not missed their chance.


s: They have missed no smallest spot upon that sun.


s: My mother was not married--they have found--


s: To my dear father. All his children, then,


s: And doubtless all their thoughts are evil, too;


s: But who that judged him ever sought to know


s: Whether, as evil sometimes wears the cloak


s: Might wear that outward semblance of a sin?


s: These thoughts are born of my own tainted heart;


s: And yet I write them, kneeling in my cell


s: Here, from His Cross, upon the bare grey wall.


s: By helping him. Make plain to all you meet


s: What part his enemies have played in this.


s: How some one, somehow, altered the command


s: Laid on him all those years ago, by Rome,


s: Never to think or breathe that this round earth


s: Moves with its sister-planets round the sun.


s: 'Tis true he promised not to write or speak


s: As if this truth were 'stablished equally


s: With God's eternal laws; and so he wrote


s: His Dialogues, reasoning for it, and against,


s: Against the Pope, and cunningly declared


s: There were three dolphins on the titlepage,


s: Each with the tail of another in its mouth.


s: The censor had not seen this, and they swore


s: It held some hidden meaning. Then they found


s: The same three dolphins sprawled on all the books


s: Of any truth that they can bring against him;


s: But, O, my friend, I more than fear their lies.


s: But Urban, the weak man, who may resent,


s: O, half the wrongs on earth arise from that!


s: Greed, and war's pomp, all envy, and most hate,


s: Are born of that; while one dear humble heart,


s: Beating with love for man, between two thieves,


s: Proves more than all His wounds and miracles


s: Say that I long to see him; that my prayers


s: Knock at the gates of mercy, night and day.


s: Urge him to leave the judgment now with God


s: Fight for him in their courses. Let him bow


s: His poor, dishonoured, glorious, old grey head


s: Before this storm, and then come home to me.


s: O, quickly, or I fear 'twill be too late;


s: But I must live to hold his hands again,


s: I dare not leave him, helpless and half blind,


s: Half father and half child, to rack and cord.


s: By all the Christ within you, save him, you;


s: And, though you may have ceased to love me now,


s: One faithful shadow in your own last hour


s: Shall watch beside you till all shadows die,


s: And heaven unfold to bless you where I failed.


s: (_Scheiner writes to Castelli, after the Trial._)


s: The lightning? Yesterday I saw him stand


s: Trembling before our court of Cardinals,


s: Trembling before the colour of their robes


s: As sheep, before the slaughter, at the sight


s: And smell of blood. His lips could hardly speak,


s: And--mark you--neither rack, nor cord had touched him.


s: Of rigor: first, the public threat of torture;


s: Within the torture-chamber, where we show


s: The instruments of torture to the accused;


s: Third, the undressing and the binding; fourth,


s: Laying him on the rack; then, fifth and last,


s: Torture, _territio realis_; out of these,


s: When, clapping both his hands against his sides,


s: These extreme courses. Great heroic soul


s: Dropped like a cur into a sea of terror,


s: He sank right under. Then he came up gasping,


s: Anything, everything! Foolish, weak, old man,


s: Who had been so proud of his discoveries,


s: And dared to teach his betters. How we grinned


s: To see him kneeling there and whispering, thus,


s: Through his white lips, bending his old grey head:


s: Kneeling before you, having before mine eyes,


s: And touching with my hands the Holy Gospels,


s: Swear that I always have believed, do now,


s: And always will believe what Holy Church


s: Has held and preached and taught me to believe;


s: And also that this earth is not the centre,


s: Completely to expunge this dark suspicion,


s: Detest and curse these errors; and I swear


s: That should I know another, friend or foe,


s: So help me God, and these His Holy Gospels,


s: His promise to denounce. Beware, Castelli!


s: _(Castelli writes, enclosing Schemer's letter, to Campanella.)_


s: What think I? This,--that he has laid his hands


s: Like Samson on the pillars of our world,


s: And one more trembling utterance such as this


s: You know that I believe, as he believes,


s: Yet there are many times when I could wish


s: That some blind Samson would indeed tear down


s: All this proud temporal fabric, made with hands,


s: And that, once more, we suffered with our Lord,


s: A veil was rent for me. There, in one flash,


s: Into new terms. I saw the Christ once more,


s: To God in Christ, as when that sad old man


s: Bowed his grey head, and knelt--at seventy years--


s: To acquiesce, and shake the world with shame.


s: _He shall not strive or cry_! Strange, is it not,


s: How nearly Scheiner--even amidst his hate--


s: Quoted the Prophets? Do we think this world


s: So greatly bettered, that the ancient cry,


s: "_Despised, rejected_," hails our God no more?


s: (_Celeste writes to her father in his imprisonment at Siena_.)


s: Dear father, it will seem a thousand years


s: I would not have you doubt that all this time


s: I have prayed for you continually. I saw


s: And yet it gladdened me, for I found a way


s: Your penance. Therefore, if you fail in this,


s: If you forget it--and indeed, to save you


s: The trouble of remembering it--your child


s: And yet, if you were here, 'twould not be so.


s: When you were pent in Rome, I used to say,


s: That wish. You are at Siena; and I now say


s: Each day, by some new prayer of mine or yours,


s: To bring you wholly back to me, and save


s: Some few of the flying days that yet remain.


s: You see, these other Nuns have each their friend,


s: Their patron Saint, their ever near _devoto_,


s: To whom they tell their joys and griefs; but I


s: Were only near me, I could want no more.


s: Your garden looks as if it missed your love.


s: The unpruned branches lean against the wall


s: To look for you. The walks run wild with flowers.


s: Even your watch-tower seems to wait for you;


s: And, though the fruit is not so good this year


s: (The vines were hurt by hail, I think, and thieves


s: Have climbed the wall too often for the pears),


s: The crop of peas is good, and only waits


s: You'll find some plump young pigeons. We must make


s: Here at the Convent, better watched than yours,


s: I raised a little harvest. With the price


s: _(Galileo writes to his friend Castelli, after his return to


s: I found her driving death back with her soul


s: Her face.--These useless eyes had spent their power


s: On distant worlds, and lost that last faint look


s: The Universe which once these outworn eyes


s: Enlarged so far beyond its ancient bounds


s: Is henceforth shrunk into that narrow space


s: Even in the dark, her tears against my face,


s: Her thin soft childish arms around my neck,


s: And her voice whispering ... love, undying love;


s: Asking me, at this last, to tell her true,


s: Had shaken her faith in what my judges held;


s: And, as I felt her fingers clutch my hand,


s: Like a child drowning, "Tell me the truth," she said,


s: "Before I lose the light of your dear face"--


s: It seemed so strange that dying she could see me


s: While I had lost her,--"tell me, before I go."


s: "Believe in Love," was all my soul could breathe.


s: Clasp mine and hold it tighter. Then she died,


s: And left me to my darkness. Could I guess


s: At unseen glories, in this deeper night,


s: Make new discoveries of profounder realms,


s: Within the soul? O, could I find Him there,


s: Rise to Him through His harmonies of law


s: I know already, that--in some strange way--


s: His law implies His love; for, failing that


s: All grows discordant, and the primal Power


s: One day to find her, waiting for me still,


s: Of knowledge. It is one with my right hand,


s: And the dark sap that keeps it burning flows


s: Out of my heart; and yet, for all my faith,


s: And, in my pride, obscure the world's one light?


s: Once, once at least, you knew far more than I;


s: (_Viviani, many years later, writes to a friend in England_)


s: I went to him, at seventeen years of age,


s: And offered him my hands and eyes to use,


s: When, voicing the true mind and heart of Rome,


s: Father Castelli, his most faithful friend,


s: Wrote, for my master, that compassionate plea;


s: Is darkened; one so exquisitely dowered,


s: And opened the eyes of all that are to come._


s: But, out of England, even then, there shone


s: That crowns my master dead. Well I recall


s: That day of days. There was no faintest breath


s: Among his garden cypress-trees. They dreamed


s: And the first star was trembling overhead,


s: When, quietly as a messenger from heaven,


s: Moving unseen, through his own purer realm,


s: Amongst the shadows of our mortal world,


s: A young man, with a strange light on his face


s: He, the one living soul on earth with power


s: To read the starry soul of this blind man,


s: Was led through Italy to his prison door.


s: He looked on Galileo, touched his hand ...


s: _O, dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,


s: He wrote it; but it pulsed within him then;


s: That had searched heaven and seen so many worlds,


s: Often he told me in those last sad months


s: Of how your grave young island poet brought


s: Peace to him, with the knowledge that, far off,


s: In other lands, the truth he had proclaimed


s: Florence, his town of flowers, whose gates in life


s: He was forbid to pass, received him dead.


s: You write to me from England, that his name


s: Is now among the mightiest in the world,


s: I stood beside his poor dishonoured grave


s: In marble on the twilight of those aisles


s: Let me defend two victims: first, the Church


s: Whom many have vilified for my master's doom;


s: Because they think that in his blind old age


s: He might with one great eagle's glance have cowed


s: His judges, played the hero, raised his hands


s: Above his head, and posturing like a mummer


s: Cried (as one empty rumour now declares)


s: Out of this wild confusion, fourfold wrongs


s: Are heaped on both sides.--I would fain bring peace,


s: The peace of truth to both before I die;


s: And, as I hope, rest at my master's feet.


s: It was not Rome that tried to murder truth;


s: With which, like Socrates, he answered fools,


s: They would not, in the name of Christ, have mixed


s: Their own unfolding heavens, for one light word


s: Simplicio, in his dialogues, for the Pope?


s: Doubtful enough--the name was borrowed straight


s: How composite are all characters in books,


s: How authors find their colours here and there,


s: And paint both saints and villains from themselves.


s: No matter. This was Urban. Make it clear.


s: Are aroused by ridicule to most human wrath.


s: Urban was once his friend. This hint of ours


s: Kills all of that. And so we mortals close


s: The doors of Love and Knowledge on the world.


s: And so, for many an age, the name of Christ


s: Has been misused by man to mask man's hate.


s: How should the Church escape, then? I who loved


s: Than many of those true servants of the Church,


s: Fathers and priests who, in their lowlier sphere,


s: Moved nearer than her cardinals to the Christ.


s: These were the very Rome, and held her keys.


s: Those who charge Rome with hatred of the light


s: Would charge the sun with darkness, and accuse


s: This dome of sky for all the blood-red wrongs


s: That men commit beneath it. Art and song


s: That found her once in Europe their sole shrine


s: And sanctuary absolve her from that stain.


s: But there's this other charge against my friend,


s: By friends, made sharper by their pity and grief,


s: The charge that he refused his martyrdom


s: His friends', his Protestant followers', or his own?


s: Faced by the torture, that sublime old man


s: Was still a faithful Catholic, and his thought


s: Plunged deeper than his Protestant followers knew.


s: His aim was not to strike a blow at Rome


s: But to confound his enemies. He believed


s: That there is nothing absolute but that Power


s: With which his Church confronted him. To this


s: He bowed his head, acknowledging that his light


s: Was darkness; but affirming, all the more,


s: That Ptolemy's light was even darker yet.


s: Read your own Protestant Milton, who derived


s: His mighty argument from my master's lips:


s: Rise on the earth, or earth rise on the sun;


s: Leave them to God above; Him serve and fear."_


s: Just as in boyhood, when my master watched


s: The swinging lamp in the cathedral there


s: At Pisa; and, by one finger on his pulse,


s: Found that, although the great bronze miracle swung


s: Through ever-shortening spaces, yet it moved


s: More slowly, and so still swung in equal times;


s: He straight devised another boon to man,


s: Those pulse-clocks which by many a fevered bed


s: Our doctors use; dreamed of that timepiece, too,


s: Whose punctual swinging pendulum on earth


s: Talks peacefully to children by the fire


s: Like an old grandad full of ancient tales,


s: Remembering endless ages, and foretelling


s: There, in the dim cathedral, he knew well,


s: That dreaming youngster, with his tawny mane


s: Of red-gold hair, and deep ethereal eyes,


s: What odorous clouds of incense round him rose;


s: Was conscious in the dimness, of great throngs


s: Kneeling around him; shared in his own heart


s: There was no mortal conflict in his mind


s: Between his dream-clocks and things absolute,


s: And one far voice, most absolute of all,


s: Feeble with suffering, calling night and day


s: "_Return, return_;" the voice of his Celeste.


s: All these things co-existed, and the less


s: Were comprehended, like the swinging lamp,


s: Within that great cathedral of his soul.


s: Often he bade me, in that desolate house


s: Read to him one sad letter, till he knew


s: The most of it by heart, and while he walked


s: I think he quite forgot that I was there;


s: For he would quietly murmur it to himself,


s: As if she had sent it, half an hour ago:


s: "Now, with this little winter's gift of fruit


s: I send you, father, from our southward wall,


s: Our convent's rarest flower, a Christmas rose.


s: At this cold season, it should please you much,


s: Seeing how rare it is; but, with the rose,


s: You must accept its thorns, which bring to mind


s: Our Lord's own bitter Passion. Its green leaves


s: Image the hope that through His Passion we,


s: May find the beauty of an eternal spring


s: Praise me the martyr, out of whose agonies


s: Some great new hope is born, but not the fool


s: Who starves his heart to prove what eyes can see


s: And intellect confirm throughout the world.


s: Of those that closed their eyes and would not see.


s: Of the thumbscrew would not prove that earth revolved.


s: I say his intricate cause could not be won


s: By blind heroics. Much that his enemies challenged


s: Was not yet wholly proven, though his mind


s: Had leapt to a certainty. He must leave the rest


s: To those that should come after, swift and young,--


s: Those runners with the torch for whom he longed


s: Before his hour, his proofs had been obscured


s: For many a year. His respite gave him time


s: To push new pawns out, in the blindfold play


s: Of those last months, and checkmate, not the Church


s: But those that hid behind her. He believed


s: His truth was all harmonious with her own.


s: How could he choose between them? Must he die


s: To affirm a discord that himself denied?


s: On many a point, he was less sure than we:


s: The movements that he saw he could but judge


s: By some fixed point in space. He chose the sun.


s: Could this be absolute? Could he then be sure


s: That this great sun did not with all its worlds


s: Of your Copernicus then? Could he be sure


s: Of any unchanging centre, whence to judge


s: This myriad-marching universe, but one--


s: Became more certain, and although his lips


s: Breathed not a syllable of it, though he stood


s: Silent as earth that also seemed so still,


s: The very silence thundered, _yet it moves_!


s: He held to what he knew, secured his work


s: Through feeble hands like mine, in other lands,


s: Not least in England, as I think you know.


s: For, partly through your poet, as I believe,


s: When his great music rolled upon your skies,


s: New thoughts were kindled in the general mind.


s: 'Twas at Arcetri that your Milton gained


s: The first great glimpse of his celestial realm.


s: Picture him,--still a prisoner of our light,


s: Closing his glorious eyes--that in the dark,


s: He might behold this wheeling universe,--


s: The planets gilding their ethereal horns


s: With sun-fire. Many a pure immortal phrase


s: Lived first upon the lips of him whose eyes


s: Were darkened first,--in whom, too, Milton found


s: As many have thought, but my dear master dead.


s: These are a part of England's memories now,


s: Newton, the mightiest of the sons of light,


s: Was born to lift the splendour of this torch


s: And carry it, as I heard that Tycho said


s: Long since to Kepler, "carry it out of sight,


s: Into the great new realm I must not tread."


s: On giant shoulders," wrote the king of thought,


s: Too proud of his great line to slight the toils


s: Of his forebears. He turned to their dim past,


s: Their fading victories and their fond defeats,


s: Their strengths into his own; and so went forth


s: With all their glory shining in his face,


s: To win new victories for the age to come.


s: So, where Copernicus had destroyed the dream


s: We called our world; where Galileo watched


s: Those ancient firmaments melt, a thin blue smoke


s: Of that tremendous music which should bind


s: Through lingering fumes of hate and clouds of doubt,


s: The dissolute throngs of that Walpurgis night


s: Danced with the vicious lusts that drown the soul


s: In flesh too gross for Circe or her swine.


s: But, in his heart, he heard one instant voice.


s: _"On with the torch once more, make all things new,


s: Build the new heaven and earth, and save the world."_


s: Ah, but the infinite patience, the long months


s: Lavished on tasks that, to the common eye,


s: With great results, or even with earth's rewards.


s: Could Rembrandt but have painted him, in those hours


s: Alone, there, in his darkened Cambridge room


s: The secret glow, the mystery, and the power,


s: The sense of all the thoughts and unseen spires


s: In darkness, like a grey dishevelled ghost,


s: --Bare-throated, down at heel, his last night's supper


s: Littering his desk, untouched; his glimmering face,


s: Under his tangled hair, intent and still,--


s: The sunbeam striking through that bullet-hole


s: In his closed shutter--a round white spot of light


s: A prism of glass. He saw the sunbeam break


s: And spread upon the screen its rainbow band


s: Like notes in music; first, the violet ray,


s: Then indigo, trembling softly into blue;


s: Then green and yellow, quivering side by side;


s: Then, in the screen, he made a small, round hole


s: Like to the first; and through it passed once more


s: Each separate coloured ray. He let it strike


s: Another prism of glass, and saw each hue


s: Bent at a different angle from its path,


s: The red the least, the violet ray the most;


s: As notes in music. Last, he took a lens,


s: And, passing through it all those coloured rays,


s: On that dark screen, in one white spot of light.


s: So, watching, testing, proving, he resolved


s: How in the whiteness of the sunlight sleep


s: Compounded, all the colours of the world.


s: He saw how raindrops in the clouds of heaven


s: Breaking the light, revealed that sevenfold arch


s: Of colours, ranged as on his own dark screen,


s: Though now they spanned the mountains and wild seas.


s: Then, where that old-world order had gone down


s: Gleams of the great new order and recalled


s: --Fraught with new meaning and a deeper hope--


s: That covenant which God made with all mankind


s: My bow in the cloud, that henceforth ye may know


s: How deeper than the wreckage of your dreams


s: Abides My law, in beauty and in power. _


s: Yet for that exquisite balance of the mind,


s: He, too, must pay the price. He stood alone


s: Bewildered, at the sudden assault of fools


s: The most substantial blessing of my quiet


s: Or read one thought. So many are ready at once


s: To swoop and sting. Indeed I would withdraw


s: In grief, the mightiest mind of that new age.


s: Remember the dark hours that well-nigh quenched


s: The splendour of that spirit. He could not sleep.


s: Yet, with that patience of the God in man


s: That still must seek the Splendour whence it came,


s: Through midnight hours of mockery and defeat,


s: In loneliness and hopelessness and tears,


s: How, after many years, when he was dead,


s: Out of this new discovery men should make


s: An instrument to explore the farthest stars


s: And, delicately dividing their white rays,


s: Divine what metals in their beauty burned,


s: Extort red secrets from the heart of Mars,


s: He bent himself to nearer, lowlier, tasks;


s: And seeing, first, that those deflected rays,


s: Though it were only by the faintest bloom


s: He made his own new weapon of the sky,--


s: That first reflecting telescope which should hold


s: In its deep mirror, as in a breathless pool


s: Like a blind giant in dreams to find what power


s: Held moons and planets to their constant road


s: Through vastness, ordered like a moving fleet;


s: What law so married them that they could not clash


s: Or sunder, but still kept their rhythmic pace


s: As if those ancient tales indeed were true


s: And some great angel helmed each gliding sphere;


s: Many had sought an answer. Many had caught


s: Gleams of the truth; and yet, as when a torch


s: And shows wild streams of faces, all confused,


s: But not the single law that knits them all


s: For all those fragmentary glimpses, whirled


s: Found the one law that bound them all in one,


s: The soul to That which made and guides them all.


s: Did Newton, dreaming in his orchard there


s: Beside the dreaming Witham, see the moon


s: Burn like a huge gold apple in the boughs


s: And wonder why should moons not fall like fruit?


s: Or did he see as those old tales declare


s: (Those fairy-tales that gather form and fire


s: A ripe fruit fall from some immortal tree


s: Of knowledge, while he wondered at what height


s: Would this earth-magnet lose its darkling power?


s: Would not the fruit fall earthward, though it grew


s: High o'er the hills as yonder brightening cloud?


s: Would not the selfsame power that plucked the fruit


s: Draw the white moon, then, sailing in the blue?


s: Then, in one flash, as light and song are born,


s: And the soul wakes, he saw it--this dark earth


s: Holding the moon that else would fly through space


s: In a whirled sling; and, by the selfsame power,


s: Her sister planets guiding all their moons;


s: While, exquisitely balanced and controlled


s: In one vast system, moons and planets wheeled


s: Light and more light! The spark from heaven was there,


s: Flung from heaven's altars, where all light is born,


s: With vision, and reveal all worlds in one.


s: But let no dreamer dream that his great work


s: Sprang, armed, like Pallas from the Thunderer's brain.


s: With infinite patience he must test and prove


s: His vision now, in those clear courts of Truth


s: Whose absolute laws (bemocked by shallower minds


s: As less than dreams, less than the faithless faith


s: That fears the Truth, lest Truth should slay the dream)


s: Are man's one guide to his transcendent heaven;


s: For there's no wandering splendour in the soul,


s: Back to that Fount of Beauty but through pain.


s: Long, long he toiled, comparing first the curves


s: Traced by the cannon-ball as it soared and fell


s: With that great curving road across the sky


s: Holding them to their paths by that dark force


s: Whose mystery men have cloaked beneath a name?


s: Yet, when he came to test and prove, he found


s: That all the great deflections of the moon,


s: Her shining cadences from the path direct,


s: Of that dark force, at such a distance acting,


s: For three long years, Newton withheld his hope


s: Until that day when light was brought from France,


s: New light, new hope, in one small glistening fact,


s: Loaded with all significance, like the point


s: Of light that shows where constellations burn.


s: Who is herself a light among all lands--


s: Those few corrected ciphers, his results,


s: Were less than nothing; yet they changed the world.


s: For Newton seized them and, with trembling hands,


s: Then, then, as on the page those figures turned


s: Even to the foot and second, his hand shook


s: He cried to those around him; for the weight


s: Of that celestial music overwhelmed him;


s: And, on his page, those burning hieroglyphs


s: Beyond our sun, he saw that river of suns


s: We call the Milky Way, that glittering host


s: Powdering the night, each grain of solar blaze


s: Too wide for thought to measure; each a sun


s: Huger than ours, with its own fleet of worlds,


s: Visible and invisible. Those bright throngs


s: That seemed dispersed like a defeated host


s: Through blindly wandering skies, now, at the word


s: Of one great dreamer, height o'er height revealed


s: Around one centre, deeper than all suns,


s: He could not sleep. That intellect, whose wings


s: Dared the cold ultimate heights of Space and Time


s: Sank, like a wounded eagle, with dazed eyes


s: Back, headlong through the clouds to throb on earth.


s: What shaft had pierced him? That which also pierced


s: His great forebears--the hate of little men.


s: They flocked around him, and they flung their dust


s: Into the sensitive eyes and laughed to see


s: Could so put out his vision and so torment


s: That delicate brain, what weakness! How the mind


s: That seemed to dwarf us, dwindles! Is he mad?


s: So buzzed the fools, whose ponderous mental wheels


s: Nor dust, nor grit, nor stones, nor rocks could irk


s: But all that careful malice could design


s: Was blindly fostered by well-meaning folly,


s: And great sane folk like Mr. Samuel Pepys


s: Canvassed his weakness and slept sound all night.


s: Came chirping into a coffee-house one day


s: Like a plump robin, "Sir, the unhappy state


s: Last week I had a letter from him, filled


s: With strange complainings, very curious hints,


s: Such as, I grieve to say, are common signs


s: --I have observed it often--of worse to come.


s: He said that he could neither eat nor sleep


s: Because of all the embroilments he was in,


s: Hinting at nameless enemies. Then he begged


s: Physicians would confirm me in my fears.


s: 'Tis very sad.... Only last night, I found


s: By--whom d'you think?--My lord of Halifax


s: (Or so dear Mrs. Porterhouse assured me)


s: Expressing, sir, the uttermost satisfaction


s: Answering the charge that science would put out


s: The light of beauty, these very handsome lines:


s: They are very neat and handsome, you'll agree.


s: And smooth as Waller, but with something more,--


s: That touch of grace, that airier elegance


s: That one so nobly praised should--well, no matter!--


s: I am told, sir, that these troubles all began


s: At Cambridge, when his manuscripts were burned.


s: He had been working, in his curious way,


s: All through the night; and, in the morning greyness


s: Went down to chapel, leaving on his desk


s: Littered with papers, cups, and greasy plates


s: Of untouched food. I am told that he would eat


s: His Monday's breakfast, sir, on Tuesday morning,


s: Named Diamond, for a black patch near his tail)


s: Though, when his terrier fawned about his feet,


s: He showed no anger. He was heard to say,


s: 'O Diamond, Diamond, little do you know...'


s: But, from that hour, ah well, we'll say no more."


s: Halley was there that day, and spoke up sharply,


s: "Sir, there are hints and hints! Do you _mean_ more?"


s: --"I do, sir," chirruped Samuel, mightily pleased


s: To find all eyes, for once, on his fat face.


s: "I fear his intellects are disordered, sir."


s: --"Good! That's an answer! I can deal with that.


s: But tell me first," quoth Halley, "why he wrote


s: --"Why, sir," piped Samuel, innocent of the trap,


s: Last week, with certain gentlemen, on the laws


s: Of chance, and what fair hopes a man might have


s: Of throwing six at dice. I happened to say


s: "You'll pardon me, but I forgot to tell you


s: I heard, a minute since, outside these doors,


s: Or else a most delicious lady of fashion,


s: A melting creature with a bold black eye,


s: A bosom like twin doves; and, sir, a mouth


s: Like a Turk's dream of Paradise. She cooed,


s: "A hint's a hint," laughed Halley, "and so to bed.


s: Whatever his embroilments were, he solved


s: With just one hour of thought, not long ago


s: The problem set by Leibnitz as a challenge


s: To all of Europe. He published his result


s: Anonymously, but Leibnitz, when he saw it,


s: Cried out, at once, old enemy as he was,


s: 'That's Newton, none but Newton! From this claw


s: I know the old lion, in his midnight lair.'"


s: (_Sir Isaac Newton writes to Mrs. Vincent at Woolthorpe._)


s: Your letter, on my eightieth birthday, wakes


s: Memories, like violets, in this London gloom.


s: You have never failed, for more than three-score years


s: To send these annual greetings from the haunts


s: Where you and I were boy and girl together.


s: When I shall have no power to thank you for them,


s: So let me tell you now that, all my life,


s: They have come to me with healing in their wings


s: Like birds from home, birds from the happy woods


s: Above the Witham, where you walked with me


s: Old Barley--how he tried to teach us drawing?


s: He found some promise, I believe, in you,


s: Those little sketches that you sent to me


s: Each Christmas, carrying each some glimpse of home.


s: There's one I love that shows the narrow lane


s: Behind the schoolhouse, where I had that bout


s: Of schoolboy fisticuffs. I have never known


s: More pleasure, I believe, than when I beat


s: That black-haired bully and won, for my reward,


s: Standing among the fox-gloves in the hedge;


s: And just behind you, in the field, I know


s: There was a patch of aromatic flowers,--


s: Rest-harrow, was it? Yes; their tangled roots


s: Pluck at the harrow; halt the sharp harrow of thought,


s: Even in old age. I never breathe their scent


s: But I am back in boyhood, dreaming there


s: Over some book, among the diligent bees,


s: Until you join me, and we dream together.


s: It was that fight that stirred my mind to beat


s: My bully at his books, and head the school;


s: Blind rivalry, at first. By such fond tricks


s: The invisible Power that shapes us--not ourselves--


s: Like children, all our lives, until we grasp


s: A sudden meaning and are born, through death


s: Into full knowledge that our Guide was Love.


s: Another picture shows those woods of ours,


s: Around whose warm dark edges in the spring


s: Primroses, knots of living sunlight, woke;


s: And, always, you, their radiant shepherdess


s: From Elfland, lead them rambling back for me,


s: The dew still clinging to their golden fleece,


s: My old sun-dial. You say that it is known


s: As "Isaac's dial" still. I took great pains


s: To set it rightly. If it has not shifted


s: 'Twill mark the time long after I am gone;


s: Not like those curious water-clocks I made.


s: Do you remember? They worked well at first;


s: But the least particles in the water clogged


s: The holes through which it dripped; and so, one day,


s: We two came home so late that we were sent


s: Supperless to our beds; and suffered much


s: From the world's harshness, as we thought it then.


s: Would God that we might taste that harshness now.


s: I cannot send you what you've sent to me;


s: And so I wish you'll never thank me more


s: For those poor gifts I have sent from year to year.


s: I send another, and hope that you can use it


s: To buy yourself those comforts which you need


s: And find that half a century has gone by,


s: Of my discoveries, prate of undying fame


s: Too late to help me. Anything I achieved


s: Was done through work and patience; and the men


s: Who sought quick roads to glory for themselves


s: Would give me all, now I have ceased to want it;


s: Sipping his orange-water, nodding to sleep,


s: Not caring any more for praise or blame;


s: But dreaming-things we dreamed of, long ago,


s: That boy and girl affair. We were too poor


s: And you, twice wedded and twice widowed, still


s: Retain, through all your nearer joys and griefs,


s: The old affection. Vaguely our blind old hands


s: Grope for each other in this growing dark


s: And deepening loneliness,--to say "good-bye."


s: Would that my words could tell you all my heart;


s: Written not long ago, may tell you more.


s: I have no skill in verse, despite the praise


s: Your kindness gave me, once; but since I wrote


s: Thinking of you, among the woods of home,


s: My heart was in them. Let them turn to yours:


s: Would quench the only lights that guide;


s: Dead at your heart, then prove you wrong.


s: --Not glittering eyes, nor dimmed by books,


s: But eyes through which the deep soul looks.


s: _Was it a dream, that low dim-lighted room


s: With that dark periwigged phantom of Dean Swift


s: Writing, beside a fire, to one he loved,--


s: Beautiful Catherine Barton, once the light


s: Of Newton's house, and his half-sister's child?_


s: Yes, Catherine Barton, I am brave enough


s: To face this pale, unhappy, wistful ghost


s: Savage and mad, a snarling kennel of sins,


s: "Your Holiness," as you called me, with that smile


s: Which even your ghost would quietly turn on me--


s: Who raised it up. It has no terrors, dear.


s: You write to me. You think I have the power


s: To shield the fame of Newton from a lie.


s: Poor little ghost! You think I hold the keys


s: Your secret lover. Coarseness, as you know,


s: Is my peculiar privilege. I'll be plain,


s: And let them wince who are whispering in the dark.


s: They are hinting that he gained his public post


s: Through you, his flesh and blood; and that he knew


s: The coffee-house that hatched it--to be scotched,


s: Nay, killed, before one snuff-box could say "snap,"


s: Had not one cold malevolent face been there


s: Listening,--that crystal-minded lover of truth,


s: That lucid enemy of all lies,--Voltaire.


s: I am told he is doing much to spread the light


s: Of Newton's great discoveries, there, in France.


s: There's little fear that France, whose clear keen eyes


s: Have missed no morning in the realm of thought,


s: Would fail to see it; and smaller need to lift


s: A brand from hell to illume the light from heaven.


s: You fear he'll print his lie. No doubt of that.


s: Assez amiable,_ ... then he'll give your name


s: As _Madame Conduit_, adding just that spice


s: To none but these truth-lovers. It will be best


s: Not to enlighten him, or he'll change his tale


s: And make an answer difficult. Let him print


s: This truth as he conceives it, and you'll need


s: All history then shall damn his death-cold lie


s: And show you for the laughing child you were


s: You say you have no fear. Your only thought


s: Is that they'll soil his fame. Ah yes, they'll try,


s: But they'll not hurt it. For all time to come


s: It stands there, firm as marble and as pure.


s: They can do nothing that the sun and rain


s: Will not erase at last. Not even Voltaire


s: Can hurt that noble memory. Think of him


s: Of some great statue. Let the venomous tongue


s: For you, who sit there wondering now, too late,


s: If it were some suspicion, some dark hint


s: Newton had heard that robbed him of his sleep,


s: How the town buzzed that Newton had gone mad.


s: You copy me that sad letter which he wrote


s: To Locke, wherein he begs him to forgive


s: The hard words he had spoken, thinking Locke


s: Had tried to embroil him, as he says, with women;


s: Some hint of scandal that he could not breathe


s: To you, because he honoured you too well?


s: I cannot tell. His mind was greatly troubled


s: With other things. At least, you need not fear


s: That Newton thought it true. He walked aloof,


s: Treading a deeper stranger world than ours.


s: Have you not told me how he would forget


s: Even to eat and drink, when he was wrapt


s: And, under this wild maze of shadow and sun


s: Beheld--though not the Master Player's hand--


s: The keys from which His organ music rolls,


s: Those visible symphonies of wild cloud and light


s: Which clothe the invisible world for mortal eyes.


s: I have heard that Leibnitz whispered to the court


s: That Newton was an "atheist." Leibnitz knew


s: That knowledge drives out wonder from the world;


s: They'll say it still, though all the dust's ablaze


s: With miracles at their feet; while Newton's laws


s: Foretell that knowledge one day shall be song,


s: And those whom Truth has taken to her heart


s: His own full victory; but at least he knew


s: That all the world was linked in one again;


s: And, if men found new worlds in years to come,


s: That's why true poets love him; and you'll find


s: Their love will cancel all that hate can do.


s: They are the sentinels of the House of Fame;


s: And that quick challenging couplet from the pen


s: To all those whisperers round the outer doors.


s: There's Addison, too. The very spirit and thought


s: _The Spacious Firmament_. Some keen-eyed age to come


s: Will say, though Newton seldom wrote a verse,


s: That music was his own and speaks his faith.


s: And, last, for those who doubt his faith in God


s: And man's immortal destiny, there remains


s: The granite monument of his own great work,


s: The vast "Principia," pointing to the skies,


s: Wherein our intellectual king proclaimed


s: The task of science,--through this wilderness


s: Of Time and Space and false appearances,


s: To make the path straight from effect to cause,


s: Until we come to that First Cause of all,


s: The Power, above, beyond the blind machine,


s: The Primal Power, the originating Power,


s: Which cannot be mechanical. He affirmed it


s: With absolute certainty. Whence arises all


s: This human will, this death-defying love?


s: Whence, but from some divine transcendent Power,


s: Not less, but infinitely more than these,


s: Because it is their Fountain and their Guide.


s: Fools in their hearts have said, "Whence comes this Power,


s: Why throw the riddle back this one stage more?"


s: And Newton, from a height above all worlds


s: An infinite Power within itself, a Whole


s: Sustaining all, binding all worlds in one.


s: This is the mystery, palpable here and now.


s: 'Tis not the lack of links within the chain


s: From cause to cause, but that the chain exists.


s: The one unquestioned miracle that we _know_,


s: The ultimate, absolute, omnipresent Power,


s: In its own being, deep and high as heaven.


s: But men still trace the greater to the less,


s: Account for soul with flesh and dreams with dust,


s: Forgetting in their manifold world the One,


s: In whom for every splendour shining here


s: Was the eye contrived by blindly moving atoms,


s: Or the still-listening ear fulfilled with music


s: By forces without knowledge of sweet sounds?


s: Are nerves and brain so sensitively fashioned


s: That they convey these pictures of the world


s: While That from which we came, the Power that made us,


s: Is drowned in blank unconsciousness of all?


s: Does it not from the things we know appear


s: Living, intelligent, who in infinite space,


s: Things in themselves, by His immediate presence


s: Everywhere? Of which things, we see no more


s: Than images only, flashed through nerves and brain


s: The true commandments, and through many forms


s: The eternal power that binds all worlds in one?


s: It is man's age-long struggle to draw near


s: His Maker, learn His thoughts, discern His law,--


s: As in the unfolding light and law of love.


s: I know not how my work may seem to others--"


s: So wrote our mightiest mind--"But to myself


s: I seem a child that wandering all day long


s: Upon the sea-shore, gathers here a shell,


s: And there a pebble, coloured by the wave,


s: While the great ocean of truth, from sky to sky


s: Stretches before him, boundless, unexplored."


s: Neither defence nor tribute. His own work


s: Remains his monument He rose at last so near


s: The Power divine that none can nearer go;


s: _Was it a dream?--that crowded concert-room


s: In Bath; that sea of ruffles and laced coats;


s: And William Herschel, in his powdered wig,


s: His choir and Linley's orchestra? He stood


s: Tapping his music-rest, lost in his own thoughts


s: And (did I hear or dream them?) all were mine:_


s: How Caroline will be vexed, although she grows


s: Thrown curious lights upon our world, to pass


s: From one life to another. Much that I took


s: For substance turns to shadow. I shall see


s: No throngs like this again; wring no more praise


s: Out of their hearts; forego that instant joy


s: --Let those who have not known it count it vain--


s: When human souls at once respond to yours.


s: Here, on the brink of fortune and of fame,


s: As men account these things, the moment comes


s: When I must choose between them and the stars;


s: We part to-night. Hereafter, I must watch


s: That other wand, to which the worlds keep time.


s: What has decided me? That marvelous night


s: When--ah, how difficult it will be to guide,


s: With all these wonders whirling through my brain!--


s: Hot-foot, out of the fluttering sea of fans,


s: Coquelicot-ribboned belles and periwigged beaux,


s: Was his; but more than half the joy my own,


s: Better than even the best that Newton made.


s: And the deep stillness of those constant lights,


s: Beyond our tumults, in that realm of peace.


s: What will they christen it? Ach--not _Herschel_, no!


s: Nor _Georgium Sidus_, as I once proposed;


s: Although he scarce could lose it, as he lost


s: From trying to tax it, he has granted me


s: How much?--two hundred golden pounds a year,


s: In the great name of science,--half the cost


s: Of one state-coach, with all those worlds to win!


s: Well--well--we must be grateful. This mad king


s: Has done far more than all the worldly-wise,


s: One day he'll have me pardoned for that...crime,


s: When I escaped--deserted, some would say--


s: From those drill-sergeants in my native land;


s: Desert my music for the orchestral spheres.


s: His majesty has done much. Yet, as my friend


s: Declared last night, "Never did monarch buy


s: Honour so cheaply"; and--he has not bought it.


s: I think that it should bear some ancient name,


s: And wear it like a crown; some deep, dark name,


s: How strange it seems--this buzzing concert-room!


s: There's Doctor Burney bowing and, behind him,


s: These crowding midgets, dense as clustering bees


s: A silence grips them, and the strings begin,


s: Throbbing. The faint lights flicker in gusts of sound.


s: Before me, glimmering like a crescent moon,


s: From buckled shoes to that white bunch of lace


s: Leans back indifferently, and clears his throat


s: As if to say, "This prelude leads to _Me_!"


s: While, on their own proud thrones, on either hand,


s: Of an appalling mystery.... We, this throng


s: Of midgets, playing, listening, tense and still,


s: We call our planet; will have sailed through space


s: Ten thousand leagues before this music ends.


s: What does it mean? Oh, God, what _can_ it mean?--


s: This weird hushed ant-hill with a thousand eyes;


s: These midget periwigs; all those little blurs,


s: Tier over tier, of faces, masks of flesh,


s: Corruptible, hiding each its hopes and dreams,


s: Will be forgotten, mixed with dust, crushed out,


s: Outlast their players. Other hands may touch


s: That harpsichord; but ere this planet makes


s: Another threescore journeys round its sun,


s: These breathing listeners will have vanished. Whither?


s: I watch my moving hands, and they grow strange!


s: How came I here, a ghost, to hear that voice


s: Above the throbbing strings, hark! _Comfort ye_...


s: I think I shall not lose it in the skies.


s: Before I dared to dream that I might build


s: To all its branches. How they stared at me,


s: That algebra, conic sections, fluxions, all


s: Pertained to music. Let them stare again.


s: Old Kepler knew, by instinct, what I now


s: Desire to learn. I have resolved to leave


s: --The music carries me back to it again!--


s: Beyond our sun, and all those other suns


s: That throng the Milky Way, far, far beyond,


s: Luminous fans and milky streaks of fire;


s: Streaming from one bright point; others that spread


s: And branch, like growing systems; others discrete,


s: Keen, ripe, with stars in clusters; others drawn back


s: And scattered abroad once more in a delicate spray


s: Faint as the mist by one bright dewdrop breathed


s: At dawn, and yet a universe like our own;


s: In which our sun is drowned, to these would seem


s: Less than to us their faintest drift of haze;


s: Yet we, who are borne on one dark grain of dust


s: Of star-mist, lost in one lost feather of light,


s: Can by the strength of our own thought, ascend


s: Through universe after universe; trace their growth


s: Through boundless time, their glory, their decay;


s: And, on the invisible road of law, more firm


s: Than granite, range through all their length and breadth,


s: Their height and depth, past, present and to come.


s: So, those who follow the great Work-master's law


s: From small things up to great, may one day learn


s: The structure of the heavens, discern the whole


s: Within the part, as men through Love see God.


s: Oh, holy night, deep night of stars, whose peace


s: Descends upon the troubled mind like dew,


s: Healing it with the sense of that pure reign


s: Of constant law, enduring through all change;


s: Shall I not, one day, after faithful years,


s: Find that thy heavens are built on music, too,


s: And hear, once more, above thy throbbing worlds


s: This voice of all compassion, _Comfort ye,--_


s: Yes--_comfort ye, my people, saith your God?_


s: True type of all, from his own father's hand


s: He caught the fire; and, though he carried it far


s: Into new regions; and, from southern fields


s: To those bright armies which his father knew,


s: Surely the crowning hour of all his life


s: Was when, his task accomplished, he returned


s: Of first beginnings and his father's youth.


s: There, in the Octagon Chapel, with bared head


s: Grey, honoured for his father and himself,


s: He touched the glimmering keyboard, touched the books


s: Those dear lost hands had touched so long ago.


s: "Strange that these poor inanimate things outlast


s: This good old friend of his. You'll leave me here


s: And, while the music breathed what else were mute,


s: His mind through many thoughts and memories ranged.


s: Picture on picture passed before him there


s: In living colours, painted on the gloom:


s: Not what the world acclaimed, the great work crowned,


s: But all that went before, the years of toil;


s: The years of infinite patience, hope, despair.


s: He saw the little house where all began,


s: His father's first resolve to explore the sky,


s: His first defeat, when telescopes were found


s: And then that dogged and all-conquering will


s: A better than even the best that Newton made."


s: Of pasteboard, with a lens at either end;


s: And then,--that arduous growth to size and power


s: With each new instrument, as his knowledge grew;


s: And, to reward each growth, a deeper heaven.


s: When her trim drawing-room, as by wizardry, turned


s: Into a workshop, where her brother's hands


s: Cut, ground and burnished, hour on aching hour,


s: Month after month, new mirrors of the sky.


s: Yet, while from dawn to dark her brother moved


s: Around some new-cut mirror, burnishing it,


s: Knowing that if he once removed his hands


s: The surface would be dimmed and must forego


s: Its heaven for ever, her quiet hands would raise


s: Food to his lips; or, with that musical voice


s: Which once--for she, too, offered her sacrifice--


s: Had promised her fame, she whiled away the hours


s: The djinns, by burnishing that old battered lamp;


s: Tilting at windmills, challenged a purblind world.


s: He saw her seized at last by that same fire,


s: Burning to help, a sleepless Vestal, dowered


s: With lightning-quickness, rushing from desk to clock,


s: Between the lamp-micrometer and his eyes.


s: A slim shawled figure through the drifted snow,


s: To help him; saw her fall with a stifled cry,


s: And struggling up, out of the blood-stained drift,


s: This wound," the surgeon muttered, "would have meant


s: "I am glad these nights were cloudy, and we lost


s: Of flutes began to goose-step through the gloom.


s: He saw that first "success"! Ay, call it so!


s: The royal command,--the court desires to see


s: The planet Saturn and his marvellous rings


s: On Friday night. The skies, on Friday night,


s: Were black with clouds. "Canute me no Canutes,"


s: Muttered their new magician, and unpacked


s: His telescope. "You shall see what you can see."


s: He levelled it through a window; and they saw


s: "Wonderful! Marvellous! Glorious! Eh, what, what!"


s: Lit by a lamp, in a hollow of Windsor Park,


s: Among the ferns, where Herne the Hunter walks,


s: And Falstaff found that fairies live on cheese.


s: Thus all were satisfied; while, above the clouds--


s: Three hundred leagues upon his awful way.


s: Then, through that night, the _vox humana_spoke


s: When, in his great third book, the somber chant


s: Kindled and soared on those exultant wings,


s: Praising the master's hand from which he, too,


s: --Father, discoverer, hero--caught the fire.


s: It spoke of those vast labours, incomplete,


s: But, through their incompletion, infinite


s: In beauty, and in hope; the task bequeathed


s: Of that great weapon rusted and outworn,


s: Which once broke down the barriers of the sky.


s: _"Perrupit claustra"_; yes, and bridged their gulfs;


s: For, far beyond our solar scheme, it showed


s: The law that bound our planets binding still


s: Those coupled suns which year by year he watched


s: Some distant comrade, lost among the stars?


s: Should we not, one day, just as Kepler drew


s: From all those faithful records Tycho made,


s: The vaster drift of stars from deep to deep;


s: Around what awful Poles, those wisps of light


s: Declared their worlds confederate with our own;


s: For, carrying many secrets, which we now


s: Slowly decipher, one swift messenger comes


s: The light that, flashing through the immeasurable,


s: The single reign of law that binds them all.


s: We shall break up those rays and, in their lines


s: And colours, read the history of their stars.


s: Year after year, the slow sure records grow.


s: Awaiting their interpreter. They shall see it,


s: Our sons, in that far day, the swift, the strong,


s: The triumphing young-eyed runners with the torch.


s: No deep-set boundary-mark in Space or Time


s: Shall halt or daunt them. Who that once has seen


s: How truth leads on to truth, shall ever dare


s: --So thought the visitant at that shadowy shrine--


s: With the soul's ear, far off, the unstricken chords


s: To which, by its own inner law, it climbs,


s: Would that my father knew how younger hands


s: How from the planet that his own eyes found


s: The mind of man would plunge into the dark,


s: And, blindfold, find without the help of eyes


s: A mightier planet, in the depths beyond."


s: Then, while the reeds, with quiet melodious pace


s: Followed the dream, as in a picture passed,


s: Adams, the boy at Cambridge, making his vow


s: By that still lamp, alone in that deep night,


s: Beneath the crumbling battlements of St. John's,


s: To know why Uranus, uttermost planet known,


s: By those known measures of its sister-worlds.


s: Was there an unknown planet, far beyond,


s: Echoed the prophecy that Sir John had made,


s: Guided by his own faith in Newton's law:


s: _We have not found it, but we feel it trembling


s: As once Columbus, from the shores of Spain,


s: A race between two nations for the prize


s: Skies might be swept for aeons ere one spark


s: Among those myriads were both found and seen


s: To move, at that vast distance round our sun.


s: They worked by faith in law alone. They knew


s: The wanderings of great Uranus, and they knew


s: Pencil in hand, shut in a four-walled room,


s: Each by pure thought must work his problem out,--


s: Given that law, to find the mass and place


s: Of that which drew their planet from his course.


s: There were no throngs to applaud them. Each alone,


s: Without the heat of conflict laboured on,


s: Consuming brain and nerve; for throngs applaud


s: Night after night they laboured. Line on line


s: Of intricate figures, moving all in law,


s: They marshalled. Their long columns formed and marched


s: From battle to battle, and no sound was heard


s: Of victory or defeat. They marched through snows


s: Bleak as the drifts that broke Napoleon's pride


s: And through a vaster desert. They drilled their hosts


s: Were anarchy, that precision which is felt


s: With worlds for ciphers. One rich autumn night


s: In Cambridge, Adams found them moving all


s: Than any merchant's ledger, yet they shone


s: With epic splendour, and like trumpets pealed;


s: _Three hundred million leagues beyond the path


s: Of our remotest planet, drowned in night


s: In volume, fifty times more vast than earth,


s: Wellnigh outlasts our nations. Though it moves


s: A thousand leagues an hour, it has not ranged


s: Thrice through its seasons since Columbus sailed,


s: He took his proofs to Greenwich. "Sweep the skies


s: Within this limited region now," he said.


s: "You'll find your moving planet. I'm not more


s: But Airy, king of Greenwich, looked askance


s: And pigeon-holed that music of the spheres.


s: Nine months he waited till Le Verrier, too,


s: Bade Challis use his telescope,--too late,


s: To make that honour all his country's own;


s: For all Le Verrier's proofs were now with Galle


s: Who, being German, had his star-charts ready


s: And, in that region, found one needlepoint


s: Who found it also, though she drowsed at Greenwich.


s: So--as the French said, with some sting in it--


s: "We gave the name of Neptune to our prize


s: Because our neighbour England rules the sea."


s: "Honour to all," say we; for, in these wars,


s: But, most of all, honour to him who found


s: The law that was a lantern to their feet,--


s: Newton, the first whose thought could soar beyond


s: "Thus saith the law of Nature and of God


s: In that great music which himself had heard,--


s: Moving around their sun, while all things moved


s: Around one deeper Light, revealed by law,


s: Beyond all vision, past all understanding.


s: Yet darkly shadowed forth for dreaming men


s: Of the Octagon Chapel, the dreamer lifted up


s: His face, as if to all those great forebears.


s: The quivering organ rolled upon the dusk


s: His dream of that new symphony,--the sun


s: Chanting to all his planets on their way


s: While, stop to stop replying, height o'er height,


s: His planets answered, voices of a dream:


s: Light, on the far faint planets that attend me!


s: Light! But for me-the fury and the fire.


s: My white-hot maelstroms, the red storms that rend me


s: Can yield them still the harvest they desire,


s: I kiss with light their sunward-lifted faces.


s: With dew-drenched flowers I crown their dusky brows.


s: They praise me, lightly, from their pleasant places.


s: Their birds belaud me, lightly, from their boughs.


s: And men, on lute and lyre, have breathed their pleasure.


s: They have watched Apollo's golden chariot roll;


s: Hymned his bright wheels, but never mine that measure


s: A million leagues of flame from Pole to Pole.


s: Like harbour-lights the stars grow wide before me,


s: I draw my worlds ten thousand leagues a day.


s: Their far blue seas like April eyes adore me.


s: They follow, dreaming, on my soundless way.


s: How should they know, who wheel around my burning,


s: What torments bore them, or what power am I,


s: I, that with all those worlds around me turning,


s: Sail, every hour, from sky to unplumbed sky?


s: My planets, these live embers of my passion,


s: These children of my hurricanes of flame,


s: Flung thro' the night, for midnight to refashion,


s: Praise, and forget, the splendour whence they came.


s: _Was it a dream that, in those bright dominions,


s: Are other worlds that sing, with lives like mine,


s: Lives that with beating hearts and broken pinions


s: Aspire and fall, half-mortal, half-divine?


s: A grain of dust among those glittering legions--


s: Am I, I only, touched with joy and tears?


s: Breathe, once again, your music of the spheres:--_


s: To clothe my glens with richer clouds of flowers,


s: To paint my clouds with ever new surprises


s: And wreathe with mist my rosier domes and towers;


s: Where now, to praise their gods, a throng assembles


s: Whose hopes and dreams no sphere but mine has known.


s: On other worlds the same warm sunlight trembles;


s: But life, love, worship, these are mine alone.


s: And now, as dewdrops in the dawn-light glisten,


s: Remote and cold--see--Earth and Venus roll.


s: We signalled them--in music! Did they listen?


s: Could they not hear those whispers of the soul?


s: May not their flesh have sealed that fount of glory,


s: That pure ninth sense which told us of mankind?


s: Can some deep sleep bereave them of our story


s: As darkness hides all colours from the blind?


s: I that am sailing deeper skies and dimmer,


s: Twelve million leagues beyond the path of Mars,


s: Salute the sun, that cloudy pearl, whose glimmer


s: Renews my spring and steers me through the stars.


s: Think not that I by distances am darkened.


s: My months are years; yet light is in mine eyes.


s: Mine eyes are not as yours. Mine ears have hearkened


s: To sounds from earth. Five moons enchant my skies.


s: And deeper yet, like molten opal shining


s: My belt of rainbow glory softly streams.


s: And seven white moons around me intertwining


s: Hide my vast beauty in a mist of dreams.


s: Huge is my orbit; and your flickering planet


s: A mote that flecks your sun, that faint white star;


s: Yet, in my magic pools, I still can scan it;


s: And deeper yet--twelve million leagues of twilight


s: Divide mine empire even from Saturn's ken.


s: Is there a world whose light is not as my light,


s: Shut from this inner vision that hath found me,


s: They hunt bright shadows, painted to betray;


s: And know not that, because their night hath drowned me,


s: My giants walk with gods in boundless day.


s: Plunge through immensity anew and find me.


s: Though scarce I see your sun,--that dying spark--


s: Across a myriad leagues it still can bind me


s: To my sure path, and steer me through the dark.


s: I sail through vastness, and its rhythms hold me,


s: Though threescore earths could in my volume sleep!


s: Whose are the might and music that enfold me?


s: Whose is the law that guides me thro' the Deep?


s: _I hear their song. They wheel around my burning!


s: I know their orbits; but what path have I?


s: I that with all those worlds around me turning


s: Sail, every hour, ten thousand leagues of sky?_


s: _My planets, these live embers of my passion,


s: And I, too, filled with music and with flame.


s: Flung thro' the night, for midnight to refashion,


s: Praise and forget the Splendour whence we came._


s: Once more upon the mountain's lonely height


s: I woke, and round me heard the sea-like sound


s: Of pine-woods, as the solemn night-wind washed


s: Through the long canyons and precipitous gorges


s: Where coyotes moaned and eagles made their nest.


s: Once more, far, far below, I saw the lights


s: Of distant cities, at the mountain's feet,


s: Over me, like the dome of some strange shrine,


s: Housing our great new weapon of the sky,


s: Like monks, between it and the low grey walls


s: That lodged them, like a fortress in the rocks,


s: I heard, once more, an eager living voice:


s: "Year after year, the slow sure records grow.


s: How, through his truth, that once dispelled a dream,


s: Broke the false axle-trees of heaven, destroyed


s: And seemed to dwarf mankind, the spirit of man


s: Laid hold on law, that Jacob's-ladder of light,


s: And mounting, slowly, surely, step by step,


s: So, father and son, the Herschels, with their charts


s: Of all those fire-mists, those faint nebulae,


s: Our new discoverers to yet mightier laws


s: Dreams in his heart that even his brain can tick


s: For law descends from law. Though all the spheres


s: Through all the abysmal depths of Space were blown


s: Than even Lucretius dreamed, yet if one thought,


s: One gleam of law within the mind of man,


s: Lighten our darkness, there's a law beyond;


s: And even that tempest of destruction moves


s: To a lighter music, shatters its myriad worlds


s: Only to gather them up, as a shattered wave


s: Whose ebb and flow are but the pulse of Life,


s: Unceasingly, and each new grain of truth


s: Is packed, like radium, with whole worlds of light.


s: The eclipses timed in Babylon help us now


s: To clock that gradual quickening of the moon,


s: On those clay tablets could foresee his gift


s: To future ages; dreamed that the groping mind,


s: Dowered with so brief a life, could ever range


s: With that divine precision through the abyss?


s: Who, when that good Dutch spectacle-maker set


s: Upon the distant clock-tower of his church,


s: Could dream of this, our hundred-inch, that shows


s: Whitening and darkening as the seasons change?


s: His moons of Jupiter, that from their eclipses


s: And from that change in their appointed times,


s: Now late, now early, as the watching earth


s: When, through his prism, he broke the pure white shaft


s: Into that rainbow band, how men should gather


s: The colours of the stars,--not only those


s: That burn in heaven, but those that long since perished,


s: Those vanished suns that eyes can still behold,


s: The strange lost stars whose light still reaches earth


s: Although they died ten thousand years ago.


s: Here, night by night, the innumerable heavens


s: Speak to an eye more sensitive than man's,


s: A thousand messages, lines of dark and bright


s: That speak of elements unknown on earth.


s: How shall men doubt, who thus can read the Book


s: Of Judgment, and transcend both Space and Time,


s: Analyse worlds that long since passed away,


s: And scan the future, how shall they doubt His power


s: From whom their power and all creation came?"


s: I think that, when the second Herschel tried


s: Those great hexameters in our English tongue,


s: _"There he depicted the earth, and the canopied sky, and the


s: Pleiads and Hyads were there and the giant force of Orion,


s: Those constellations burn, the wonder bides


s: That each vast sun can speed through the abyss


s: Age after age more swiftly than an eagle,


s: Each on its different road, alone like ours


s: With its own satellites; yet, since Homer sang,


s: Their aspect has not altered! All their flight


s: Has not yet changed the old pattern of the Wain.


s: The sword-belt of Orion is not sundered.


s: Nor has one fugitive splendour broken yet


s: How shall men doubt His empery over time


s: For there, despite Copernicus, each may find


s: The centre of all things. There He lives and reigns.


s: There infinite distance into nearness grows,


s: And infinite majesty stoops to dust again;


s: All things in little, infinite love in man . . .


s: Oh, beating wings, descend to earth once more,


s: And hear, reborn, the desert singer's cry:


s: _When I consider the heavens, the work of Thy fingers,


s: The sun and the moon and the stars which Thou hast ordained,


s: Though man be as dust I know Thou art mindful of him;


s: And, through Thy law, Thy light still visiteth him._


s: What's true and strong has growing-room,


s: A life seventy-seven years long and but two hundred pages of


s: lyrical production, more than half of which was written in about


s: a dozen years!  The seeming disproportion is explained by the


s: lines just quoted from the poem _Good Cheer_, with which Björnson


s: following one from _The Poet_, which discloses to us the larger


s: conception of the mission that Björnson himself in all his work


s: and life, no less than in his lyrics, so finely fulfilled:


s: In times of need with new life pregnant,


s: "The best bard for his nation" is he who "does the prophet's


s: deeds," who "rallies now the present's hosts," and "frees,


s: --by right eternal."  Poet and prophet Björnson was, but more


s: than all else the leader of the Norwegian people, "where loud


s: first half in Henrik Wergeland and during the second half in


s: Björnstjerne Björnson.  True as this is of the former, it is


s: still more true of the latter, for the history of Norway shows


s: that the soul of its people expresses itself best through will


s: and action.  Björnson throughout all his life willed and wrought


s: so much for his country, that he could give relatively little


s: time and power to lyrical self-expression.


s: But Björnson strikingly represented the past of Norway as well


s: as his contemporary age.  He was a modern blending of the heroic


s: on the fields of politics and economics, ethics, and esthetics


s: were the only form of conflict,--a leader evoking, developing,


s: and guiding the powers of his nation into fuller and higher life.


s: skald of his people, almost equally endowed with genius as a


s: narrative, a dramatic, and a lyric poet; with talents scarcely


s: less remarkable as an orator, a theater-director, a journalistic


s: tribune of the people (his newspaper articles amounted, roughly


s: estimated, to ten thousand book-pages), a letter-writer, and a


s: If, furthermore, we take into account also Björnson's labors and


s: achievements in the domain of action more narrowly considered, it


s: its pages were written before the year 1875, so that the lyrical


s: output, here published, of the thirty-four years thereafter


s: amounts to but fifty pages.  From the year 1874 on in Björnson's


s: life the chieftain supplanted the skald, so far as lyrical


s: That soon after 1874 Björnson passed through a crisis in his


s: personal thought and inner life was probably, in view of the


s: sufficient explanation suggested above, without influence in


s: lessening his production of short poems.  This crisis was in his


s: orthodox sort.  Here his somewhat somber religion was soon made


s: just before 1877 study of modern science and philosophy, of the


s: lines which sound no less true to the keynote of his later years:


s: The quantity, then, of Björnson's short poems is small.  Their


s: reproduced, that he was impatient of any but the most significant


s: _Norway, Norway!_ the first strophe of which is:


s: Rising in blue from the sea's gray and green,


s: Mate among mountains, wood-ridge and slope


s: Wandering follow.  Where the wastes lighten,


s: Such abrupt brevity of expression, not uncommon among Norwegian


s: peasants, was no doubt natural to Björnson, but was confirmed by


s: the influence of the Old Norse sagas and skaldic poetry.  The


s: latter may also have increased his use of alliteration, masterly


s: modern forms. Conciseness of style in thought and word permitted


s: no lyrical elaboration of figures or descriptions; it restricted


s: are made to think, or at least to feel, the unwritten poetry


s: between the lines.  Scarcely less notable is this paucity in the


s: expression of wealth of thought and feeling in the memorial and


s: Björnson's diction corresponds to the quality of style thus


s: briefly characterized.  The modern Norwegian language has no


s: considerable, highly developed special vocabulary for poetic use.


s: figures of hewing and of hammer-strokes, but then have said that


s: it is not so much laborious effort we hear as the natural falling


s: suggestion and sound which could not be calculated and designed.


s: The verbal material seems hardly to be amenable to the poet's


s: the distinctive power and beauty of Björnson's diction.


s: Such, then, in melody, rhythm, style, and diction is the form of


s: the soul of the hearer or reader to an intense activity of


s: appropriation, which brings a fine reward.


s: What, now, is the content that finds expression in this form?


s: self, but taken from his early tales and the drama _Halte Hulda_,


s: memorial poem on J. L. Heiberg, and one descriptive, indeed, of


s: personal, or memorial poems, some of religious faith, historical


s: ballads, lyrical romances, patriotic and festival choral songs,


s: poems in celebration of individual men and women, living or dead,


s: Now these subjects may be gathered into a small number of groups:


s: patriotism,--love of country, striving for its welfare, pride in


s: ideals; sexual love could not be the whole nor the center of life


s: By far the largest number of the _Poems and Songs_ have as their


s: the meaning of life, he accomplished the mission which he himself


s: The contents of this volume befit the verse-form, as if each were


s: wrote of him many years ago: "In few [fields] has he put forth


s: Have thanks for all from our childhood's day,


s: I thought that play would go on for aye,


s: Though life should pass to its gloaming.


s: And scanned the ridge with the spruces yonder;


s: But darkening mountains made shadows throng,


s: He'll dare the way when the sun's descended.


s: The light shone fainter, was nearly out,


s: To turn its look it is slow in learning;


s: They name a place where I help may find,


s: --But good it is, that full well I know,


s: Who placed the houses both here and yonder,


s: Who built the church and to pray invited,


s: The fox lay still by the birch-tree's root


s: The fox laughed low by the birch-tree's root


s: The fox lay hid by the birch-tree's root


s: The hare dashed to him with reckless foot


s: May God have mercy, but this is queer! --


s: Good gracious, how dare you dance so here


s: The skis were too loose at both heel and toe.


s: Then little Nils Finn in the snow set his feet:


s: "You ugliest troll, you shall never me cheat!"


s: Nils Finn with his staff beat the snow till it blew


s: "Your trollship, now saw you how hapless it flew?"


s: Nils Finn pushed one ski farther forward with might;


s: The other held fast,--he reeled left and right.


s: Nils' tears wet the snow, while he kicked and he struck;


s: The more that he kicked there, the deeper he stuck.


s: The birch-trees, they danced, and the pine-trees said "Hoo!"


s: They more were than one,--were a hundred and two.


s: A laugh shook the ridge till it made the snow fly;


s: But Nils clenched his fists and he swore 't was a lie.


s: The snow-field yawned wide, and the heavens came low;


s: Nils thought 't was now time for him also to go.


s: Two skis in the snow looked about everywhere,


s: But saw nothing much; for there was nothing there.


s: Good-morning, sun, 'mid the leaves so green --


s: Mind of youth in the dales' deep reaches,


s: Smile that brightens their somber speeches,


s: Good-morning, sun, o'er the royal tower!


s: Kindly thou beckonest forth each maiden;


s: Kindle each heart as a star light-laden,


s: Twinkling so clear, though a sad night lower!


s: Good-morning, sun, o'er the mountain-side!


s: Light the land that still sleep disguises


s: For yonder day in thy warmth's full tide!


s: Lord, if His arms shall the child surround,


s: Goes to the door, and its name there calls;


s: Take good care of that fleece-coat thine!


s: Surely you've heard about Tailor Nils, who flaunts him so gay.


s: If it's more than a week that you've been here,


s: Surely you've heard how Knut Storedragen got a lesson severe.


s: Up on the barn of Ola-Per Kviste after a punchin':


s: "When Nils heaves you again, take with you some luncheon."


s: Haunting ghosts of his name spread alarm all around.


s: "Tailor Nils, where you wish to lie, now declare!


s: On that spot will I spit and lay your head right there."--


s: "Oh, just come up so near, that I know you by the scent!


s: Think not that by your jaw to earth I shall be bent!"


s: When first they met, 't was scarce a bout at all,


s: Neither man was ready yet to try to get a fall.


s: The second time Hans Bugge slipped his hold.


s: "Are you tired now, Hans Bugge?  The dance will soon be bold."


s: The third time Hans fell headlong, and forth the blood did spurt.


s: Saw you a tree casting shadows on new-fallen snow?


s: Saw you Nils on a maiden smiling glances bestow?


s: Have you seen Tailor Nils when the dance he commences?


s: Fair Venevil hastened with tripping feet


s: He sang, so it rang o'er the church far away:


s: And all the little birds sang right merrily their lay:


s: But later know I little, if she twines her wreath so gay!"


s: She twined him a wreath of the flowers blue:


s: He tossed it and caught it and to her did bend:


s: And loudly he exulted at the field's far distant end:


s: She twined him a wreath: "Do at all you care


s: She twined one, and gave in life's hour so rare


s: She twined one all white as a lily-band:


s: She twined one blood-red, with her love in each strand:


s: He took them both and kept them both, but would not understand.


s: She twined of the flowers that bloomed around


s: She gathered and twined, while tears would her eyes fill:


s: In silence then he took them, but to flight he turned him still.


s: She twined one so large, of discordant hue:


s: She twined it and twined, till her fingers were sore:


s: But when she turned, he was not there, she never saw him more.


s: But now it was long past the Midsummer Day,


s: She twined it of the flowers, though they all were now away!


s: But later know I little, if she twines her wreath so gay!"


s: There he exults in the swift, wild play,


s: Full-leaved the apple-tree wishes naught


s: Spreading, when summer hither is brought,


s: Shall to my thoughts this wall say,--No!


s: Baffling my thoughts, that so buoyant are;--


s: The house and the yard couldn't hold me;


s: But there were ants, and gnats that bite,


s: The horse-fly was keen, the wasp showed fight.


s: "Dear me, don't you want to be out in this fine


s: weather?" --said mother, who sat on the steps and sang.


s: Then snakes came crawling, a fathom long,


s: To bask in the sun,--I fled with my song.


s: "In such blessed weather we can go barefoot,"--said mother,


s: But hot grew the sun, and peeled my nose;


s: "Now these are just the days to make hay in,"-- said mother,


s: I climbed up a tree, oh, what bliss to play,


s: But worms soon fell on my neck, by chance,


s: And jumping, I cried: "'T is the Devil's own dance!"


s: "Yes, if the cows aren't sleek and shiny to-day, they'll


s: never be so,"--said mother, gazing up the hillside.


s: I dashed to the waterfall's endless play,