Eware, Castelli! What Think You Of Your Galileo Now? Iii (Castelli Writes, Enclosing Schemer'S Letter, To Campanella.) What Think I? This,--That He Has Laid His Hands Like Samson On The Pillars Of Our World, And One More Trembling Utterance Such As This Will Overwhelm Us All. O, Campanella, You Know That I Am Loyal To Our Faith, As Galileo Too Has Always Been. You Know That I Believe, As He Believes, In The One Catholic Apostolic Church; Yet There Are Many Times When I Could Wish That Some Blind Samson Would Indeed Tear Down All This Proud Temporal Fabric, Made With Hands, And That, Once More, We Suffered With Our Lord, Were Persecuted, Crucified With Him. I Tell You, Campanella, On That Day When Galileo Faced Our Cardinals, A Veil Was Rent For Me. There, In One Flash, I Saw The Eternal Tragedy, Transformed Into New Terms. I Saw The Christ Once More, Before The Court Of Pilate. Peter There Denied Him Once Again; And, As For Me, Never Has All My Soul So Humbly Knelt To God In Christ, As When That Sad Old Man Bowed His Grey Head, And Knelt--At Seventy Years-- To Acquiesce, And Shake The World With Shame. He Shall Not Strive Or Cry! Strange, Is It Not, How Nearly Scheiner--Even Amidst His Hate-- Quoted The Prophets? Do We Think This World So Greatly Bettered, That The Ancient Cry, "Despised, Rejected," Hails Our God No More? Iv (Celeste Writes To Her Father In His Imprisonment At Siena.) Dear Father, It Will Seem A Thousand Years Until I See You Home Again And Well. I Would Not Have You Doubt That All This Time I Have Prayed For You Continually. I Saw A Copy Of Your Sentence. I Was Grieved; And Yet It Gladdened Me, For I Found A Way To Be Of Use, By Taking On Myself Your Penance. Therefore, If You Fail In This, If You Forget It--And Indeed, To Save You The Trouble Of Remembering It--Your Child Will Do It For You. Ah, Could She Do More! How Willingly Would Your Celeste Endure A Straiter Prison Than She Lives In Now To Set You Free. "A Prison," I Have Said; And Yet, If You Were Here, 'Twould Not Be So. When You Were Pent In Rome, I Used To Say, "Would He Were At Siena!" God Fulfilled That Wish. You Are At Siena; And I Now Say Would He Were At Arcctri. So Perhaps Little By Little, Angels Can Be Wooed Each Day, By Some New Prayer Of Mine Or Yours, To Bring You Wholly Back To Me, And Save Some Few Of The Flying Days That Yet Remain. You See, These Other Nuns Have Each Their Friend, Their Patron Saint, Their Ever Near Devoto, To Whom They Tell Their Joys And Griefs; But I Have Only You, Dear Father, And If You Were Only Near Me, I Could Want No More. Your Garden Looks As If It Missed Your Love. The Unpruned Branches Lean Against The Wall To Look For You. The Walks Run Wild With Flowers. Even Your Watch-Tower Seems To Wait For You; And, Though The Fruit Is Not So Good This Year (The Vines Were Hurt By Hail, I Think, And Thieves Have Climbed The Wall Too Often For The Pears), The Crop Of Peas Is Good, And Only Waits Your Hand To Gather It. In The Dovecote, Too, You'll Find Some Plump Young Pigeons. We Must Make A Feast For Your Return. In My Small Plot, Here At The Convent, Better Watched Than Yours, I Raised A Little Harvest. With The Price I Got For It, I Had Three Masses Said For My Dear Father'S Sake. V (Galileo Writes To His Friend Castelli, After His Return To Arcetri.) Castelli, O Castelli, She Is Dead. I Found Her Driving Death Back With Her Soul Till I Should Come. I Could Not Even See Her Face.--These Useless Eyes Had Spent Their Power On Distant Worlds, And Lost That Last Faint Look Of Love On Earth. I Am In The Dark, Castelli, Utterly And Irreparably Blind. The Universe Which Once These Outworn Eyes Enlarged So Far Beyond Its Ancient Bounds Is Henceforth Shrunk Into That Narrow Space Which I Myself Inhabit. Yet I Found Even In The Dark, Her Tears Against My Face, Her Thin Soft Childish Arms Around My Neck, And Her Voice Whispering ... Love, Undying Love; Asking Me, At This Last, To Tell Her True, If We Should Meet Again. Her Trust In Me Had Shaken Her Faith In What My Judges Held; And, As I Felt Her Fingers Clutch My Hand, Like A Child Drowning, "Tell Me The Truth," She Said, "Before I Lose The Light Of Your Dear Face"-- It Seemed So Strange That Dying She Could See Me While I Had Lost Her,--"Tell Me, Before I Go." "Believe In Love," Was All My Soul Could Breathe. I Heard No Answer. Only I Felt Her Hand Clasp Mine And Hold It Tighter. Then She Died, And Left Me To My Darkness. Could I Guess At Unseen Glories, In This Deeper Night, Make New Discoveries Of Profounder Realms, Within The Soul? O, Could I Find Him There, Rise To Him Through His Harmonies Of Law And Make His Will My Own! This Much, At Least, I Know Already, That--In Some Strange Way-- His Law Implies His Love; For, Failing That All Grows Discordant, And The Primal Power Ignobler Than His Children. So I Trust One Day To Find Her, Waiting For Me Still, When All Things Are Made New. I Raise This Torch Of Knowledge. It Is One With My Right Hand, And The Dark Sap That Keeps It Burning Flows Out Of My Heart; And Yet, For All My Faith, It Shows Me Only Darkness. Was I Wrong? Did I Forget The Subtler Truth Of Rome And, In My Pride, Obscure The World'S One Light? Did I Subordinate To This Moving Earth Our Swiftlier-Moving God? O, My Celeste, Once, Once At Least, You Knew Far More Than I; And She Is Dead, Castelli, She Is Dead. Vi (Viviani, Many Years Later, Writes To A Friend In England) I Was His Last Disciple, As You Say I Went To Him, At Seventeen Years Of Age, And Offered Him My Hands And Eyes To Use, When, Voicing The True Mind And Heart Of Rome, Father Castelli, His Most Faithful Friend, Wrote, For My Master, That Compassionate Plea; The Noblest Eye That Nature Ever Made Is Darkened; One So Exquisitely Dowered, So Delicate In Power That It Beheld More Than All Other Eyes In Ages Gone And Opened The Eyes Of All That Are To Come. But, Out Of England, Even Then, There Shone The First Ethereal Promise Of Light That Crowns My Master Dead. Well I Recall That Day Of Days. There Was No Faintest Breath Among His Garden Cypress-Trees. They Dreamed Dark, On A Sky Too Beautiful For Tears, And The First Star Was Trembling Overhead, When, Quietly As A Messenger From Heaven, Moving Unseen, Through His Own Purer Realm, Amongst The Shadows Of Our Mortal World, A Young Man, With A Strange Light On His Face Knocked At The Door Of Galileo'S House. His Name Was Milton. By The Hand Of God, He, The One Living Soul On Earth With Power To Read The Starry Soul Of This Blind Man, Was Led Through Italy To His Prison Door. He Looked On Galileo, Touched His Hand ... O, Dark, Dark, Dark, Amid The Blaze Of Noon, Irrecoverably Dark .... In After Days, He Wrote It; But It Pulsed Within Him Then; And Galileo Rising To His Feet And Turning On Him Those Unseeing Eyes That Had Searched Heaven And Seen So Many Worlds, Said To Him, "You Have Found Me." Often He Told Me In Those Last Sad Months Of How Your Grave Young Island Poet Brought Peace To Him, With The Knowledge That, Far Off, In Other Lands, The Truth He Had Proclaimed Was Gathering Power. Soon After, Death Unlocked His Prison, And The City That He Loved, Florence, His Town Of Flowers, Whose Gates In Life He Was Forbid To Pass, Received Him Dead. You Write To Me From England, That His Name Is Now Among The Mightiest In The World, And In His Name I Thank You. I Am Old; And I Was Very Young When, Long Ago, I Stood Beside His Poor Dishonoured Grave Where Hate Denied Him Even An Epitaph; And I Have Seen, Slowly And Silently, His Purer Fame Arising, Like A Moon In Marble On The Twilight Of Those Aisles At Santa Croce, Where The Dread Decree Was Read Against Him. Now, Against Two Wrongs, Let Me Defend Two Victims: First, The Church Whom Many Have Vilified For My Master'S Doom; And Second, Galileo, Whom They Reproach Because They Think That In His Blind Old Age He Might With One Great Eagle'S Glance Have Cowed His Judges, Played The Hero, Raised His Hands Above His Head, And Posturing Like A Mummer Cried (As One Empty Rumour Now Declares) After His Recantation--Yet, It Moves! Out Of This Wild Confusion, Fourfold Wrongs Are Heaped On Both Sides.--I Would Fain Bring Peace, The Peace Of Truth To Both Before I Die; And, As I Hope, Rest At My Master'S Feet. It Was Not Rome That Tried To Murder Truth; But The Blind Hate And Vanity Of Man. Had Galileo But Concealed The Smile With Which, Like Socrates, He Answered Fools, They Would Not, In The Name Of Christ, Have Mixed This Hemlock In His Chalice. O Pitiful Pitiful Human Hearts That Must Deny Their Own Unfolding Heavens, For One Light Word Twisted By Whispering Malice. Did He Mean Simplicio, In His Dialogues, For The Pope? Doubtful Enough--The Name Was Borrowed Straight From Older Dialogues. If He Gave One Thought Of Urban'S To Simplicio--You Know Well How Composite Are All Characters In Books, How Authors Find Their Colours Here And There, And Paint Both Saints And Villains From Themselves. No Matter. This Was Urban. Make It Clear. Simplicio Means A Simpleton. The Saints Are Aroused By Ridicule To Most Human Wrath. Urban Was Once His Friend. This Hint Of Ours Kills All Of That. And So We Mortals Close The Doors Of Love And Knowledge On The World. And So, For Many An Age, The Name Of Christ Has Been Misused By Man To Mask Man'S Hate. How Should The Church Escape, Then? I Who Loved My Master, Know He Had No Truer Friend Than Many Of Those True Servants Of The Church, Fathers And Priests Who, In Their Lowlier Sphere, Moved Nearer Than Her Cardinals To The Christ. These Were The Very Rome, And Held Her Keys. Those Who Charge Rome With Hatred Of The Light Would Charge The Sun With Darkness, And Accuse This Dome Of Sky For All The Blood-Red Wrongs That Men Commit Beneath It. Art And Song That Found Her Once In Europe Their Sole Shrine And Sanctuary Absolve Her From That Stain. But There'S This Other Charge Against My Friend, And Master, Galileo. It Is Brought By Friends, Made Sharper By Their Pity And Grief, The Charge That He Refused His Martyrdom And So Denied His Own High Faith. Whose Faith,-- His Friends', His Protestant Followers', Or His Own? Faced By The Torture, That Sublime Old Man Was Still A Faithful Catholic, And His Thought Plunged Deeper Than His Protestant Followers Knew. His Aim Was Not To Strike A Blow At Rome But To Confound His Enemies. He Believed As Humbly As Castelli Or Celeste That There Is Nothing Absolute But That Power With Which His Church Confronted Him. To This He Bowed His Head, Acknowledging That His Light Was Darkness; But Affirming, All The More, That Ptolemy'S Light Was Even Darker Yet. Read Your Own Protestant Milton, Who Derived His Mighty Argument From My Master'S Lips: "Whether The Sun Predominant In Heaven Rise On The Earth, Or Earth Rise On The Sun; Leave Them To God Above; Him Serve And Fear." Just As In Boyhood, When My Master Watched The Swinging Lamp In The Cathedral There At Pisa; And, By One Finger On His Pulse, Found That, Although The Great Bronze Miracle Swung Through Ever-Shortening Spaces, Yet It Moved More Slowly, And So Still Swung In Equal Times; He Straight Devised Another Boon To Man, Those Pulse-Clocks Which By Many A Fevered Bed Our Doctors Use; Dreamed Of That Timepiece, Too, Whose Punctual Swinging Pendulum On Earth Measures The Starry Periods, And To-Day Talks Peacefully To Children By The Fire Like An Old Grandad Full Of Ancient Tales, Remembering Endless Ages, And Foretelling Eternities To Come; But, All The While There, In The Dim Cathedral, He Knew Well, That Dreaming Youngster, With His Tawny Mane Of Red-Gold Hair, And Deep Ethereal Eyes, What Odorous Clouds Of Incense Round Him Rose; Was Conscious In The Dimness, Of Great Throngs Kneeling Around Him; Shared In His Own Heart The Music And The Silence And The Cry, O, Salutaris Hostia!--So Now, There Was No Mortal Conflict In His Mind Between His Dream-Clocks And Things Absolute, And One Far Voice, Most Absolute Of All, Feeble With Suffering, Calling Night And Day "Return, Return;" The Voice Of His Celeste. All These Things Co-Existed, And The Less Were Comprehended, Like The Swinging Lamp, Within That Great Cathedral Of His Soul. Often He Bade Me, In That Desolate House Il Giojello, Of Old A Jewel Of Light, Read To Him One Sad Letter, Till He Knew The Most Of It By Heart, And While He Walked His Garden, Leaning On My Arm, At Times I Think He Quite Forgot That I Was There; For He Would Quietly Murmur It To Himself, As If She Had Sent It, Half An Hour Ago: "Now, With This Little Winter'S Gift Of Fruit I Send You, Father, From Our Southward Wall, Our Convent'S Rarest Flower, A Christmas Rose. At This Cold Season, It Should Please You Much, Seeing How Rare It Is; But, With The Rose, You Must Accept Its Thorns, Which Bring To Mind Our Lord'S Own Bitter Passion. Its Green Leaves Image The Hope That Through His Passion We, After This Winter Of Our Mortal Life, May Find The Beauty Of An Eternal Spring In Heaven." Praise Me The Martyr, Out Of Whose Agonies Some Great New Hope Is Born, But Not The Fool Who Starves His Heart To Prove What Eyes Can See And Intellect Confirm Throughout The World. Why Must He Follow The Idiot Schoolboy Code, Torture His Soul To Reinforce The Sight Of Those That Closed Their Eyes And Would Not See. To Your Own Men Of Science, Fifty Turns Of The Thumbscrew Would Not Prove That Earth Revolved. Call It Italian Subtlety If You Will, I Say His Intricate Cause Could Not Be Won By Blind Heroics. Much That His Enemies Challenged Was Not Yet Wholly Proven, Though His Mind Had Leapt To A Certainty. He Must Leave The Rest To Those That Should Come After, Swift And Young,-- Those Runners With The Torch For Whom He Longed As His Deliverers. Had He Chosen Death Before His Hour, His Proofs Had Been Obscured For Many A Year. His Respite Gave Him Time To Push New Pawns Out, In The Blindfold Play Of Those Last Months, And Checkmate, Not The Church But Those That Hid Behind Her. He Believed His Truth Was All Harmonious With Her Own. How Could He Choose Between Them? Must He Die To Affirm A Discord That Himself Denied? On Many A Point, He Was Less Sure Than We: But Surer Far Of Much That We Forget The Movements That He Saw He Could But Judge By Some Fixed Point In Space. He Chose The Sun. Could This Be Absolute? Could He Then Be Sure That This Great Sun Did Not With All Its Worlds Move Round A Deeper Centre? What Became Of Your Copernicus Then? Could He Be Sure Of Any Unchanging Centre, Whence To Judge This Myriad-Marching Universe, But One-- The Absolute Throne Of God. Affirming This Eternal Rock, His Own Uncertainties Became More Certain, And Although His Lips Breathed Not A Syllable Of It, Though He Stood Silent As Earth That Also Seemed So Still, The Very Silence Thundered, Yet It Moves! He Held To What He Knew, Secured His Work Through Feeble Hands Like Mine, In Other Lands, Not Least In England, As I Think You Know. For, Partly Through Your Poet, As I Believe, When His Great Music Rolled Upon Your Skies, New Thoughts Were Kindled In The General Mind. 'Twas At Arcetri That Your Milton Gained The First Great Glimpse Of His Celestial Realm. Picture Him,--Still A Prisoner Of Our Light, Closing His Glorious Eyes--That In The Dark, He Might Behold This Wheeling Universe,-- The Planets Gilding Their Ethereal Horns With Sun-Fire. Many A Pure Immortal Phrase In His Own Work, As I Have Pondered It, Lived First Upon The Lips Of Him Whose Eyes Were Darkened First,--In Whom, Too, Milton Found That Samson Agonistes, Not Himself, As Many Have Thought, But My Dear Master Dead. These Are A Part Of England'S Memories Now, The Music Blown Upon Her Sea-Bright Air When, In The Year Of Galileo'S Death, Newton, The Mightiest Of The Sons Of Light, Was Born To Lift The Splendour Of This Torch And Carry It, As I Heard That Tycho Said Long Since To Kepler, "Carry It Out Of Sight, Into The Great New Age I Must Not Know, Into The Great New Realm I Must Not Tread." V Newton I If I Saw Farther, 'Twas Because I Stood On Giant Shoulders," Wrote The King Of Thought, Too Proud Of His Great Line To Slight The Toils Of His Forebears. He Turned To Their Dim Past, Their Fading Victories And Their Fond Defeats, And Knelt As At An Altar, Drawing All Their Strengths Into His Own; And So Went Forth With All Their Glory Shining In His Face, To Win New Victories For The Age To Come. So, Where Copernicus Had Destroyed The Dream We Called Our World; Where Galileo Watched Those Ancient Firmaments Melt, A Thin Blue Smoke Into A Vaster Night; Where Kepler Heard Only Stray Fragments, Isolated Chords Of That Tremendous Music Which Should Bind All Things Anew In One, Newton Arose And Carried On Their Fire. Around Him Reeled Through Lingering Fumes Of Hate And Clouds Of Doubt, Lit By The Afterglow Of The Civil War, The Dissolute Throngs Of That Walpurgis Night Where All The Cynical Spirits That Deny Danced With The Vicious Lusts That Drown The Soul In Flesh Too Gross For Circe Or Her Swine. But, In His Heart, He Heard One Instant Voice. "On With The Torch Once More, Make All Things New, Build The New Heaven And Earth, And Save The World." Ah, But The Infinite Patience, The Long Months Lavished On Tasks That, To The Common Eye, Were Insignificant, Never To Be Crowned With Great Results, Or Even With Earth'S Rewards. Could Rembrandt But Have Painted Him, In Those Hours Making His First Analysis Of Light Alone, There, In His Darkened Cambridge Room At Trinity! Could He Have Painted, Too, The Secret Glow, The Mystery, And The Power, The Sense Of All The Thoughts And Unseen Spires That Soared To Heaven Around Him! He Stood There, Obscure, Unknown, The Shadow Of A Man In Darkness, Like A Grey Dishevelled Ghost, --Bare-Throated, Down At Heel, His Last Night'S Supper Littering His Desk, Untouched; His Glimmering Face, Under His Tangled Hair, Intent And Still,-- Preparing Our New Universe. He Caught The Sunbeam Striking Through That Bullet-Hole In His Closed Shutter--A Round White Spot Of Light Upon A Small Dark Screen. He Interposed A Prism Of Glass. He Saw The Sunbeam Break And Spread Upon The Screen Its Rainbow Band Of Disentangled Colours, All In Scale Like Notes In Music; First, The Violet Ray, Then Indigo, Trembling Softly Into Blue; Then Green And Yellow, Quivering Side By Side; Then Orange, Mellowing Richly Into Red. Then, In The Screen, He Made A Small, Round Hole Like To The First; And Through It Passed Once More Each Separate Coloured Ray. He Let It Strike Another Prism Of Glass, And Saw Each Hue Bent At A Different Angle From Its Path, The Red The Least, The Violet Ray The Most; But All In Scale And Order, All Precise As Notes In Music. Last, He Took A Lens, And, Passing Through It All Those Coloured Rays, Drew Them Together Again, Remerging All On That Dark Screen, In One White Spot Of Light. So, Watching, Testing, Proving, He Resolved The Seeming Random Glories Of Our Day Into A Constant Harmony, And Found How In The Whiteness Of The Sunlight Sleep Compounded, All The Colours Of The World. He Saw How Raindrops In The Clouds Of Heaven Breaking The Light, Revealed That Sevenfold Arch Of Colours, Ranged As On His Own Dark Screen, Though Now They Spanned The Mountains And Wild Seas. Then, Where That Old-World Order Had Gone Down Beneath A Darker Deluge, He Beheld Gleams Of The Great New Order And Recalled --Fraught With New Meaning And A Deeper Hope-- That Covenant Which God Made With All Mankind Throughout All Generations: I Will Set My Bow In The Cloud, That Henceforth Ye May Know How Deeper Than The Wreckage Of Your Dreams Abides My Law, In Beauty And In Power. Ii Yet For That Exquisite Balance Of The Mind, He, Too, Must Pay The Price. He Stood Alone Bewildered, At The Sudden Assault Of Fools On This, His First Discovery. "I Have Lost The Most Substantial Blessing Of My Quiet To Follow A Vain Shadow. I Would Fain Attempt No More. So Few Can Understand, Or Read One Thought. So Many Are Ready At Once To Swoop And Sting. Indeed I Would Withdraw For Ever From Philosophy." So He Wrote In Grief, The Mightiest Mind Of That New Age. Let Those Who'D Stone The Roman Curia For All The Griefs That Galileo Knew Remember The Dark Hours That Well-Nigh Quenched The Splendour Of That Spirit. He Could Not Sleep. Yet, With That Patience Of The God In Man That Still Must Seek The Splendour Whence It Came, Through Midnight Hours Of Mockery And Defeat, In Loneliness And Hopelessness And Tears, He Laboured On. He Had No Power To See How, After Many Years, When He Was Dead, Out Of This New Discovery Men Should Make An Instrument To Explore The Farthest Stars And, Delicately Dividing Their White Rays, Divine What Metals In Their Beauty Burned, Extort Red Secrets From The Heart Of Mars, Or Measure The Molten Iron In The Sun. He Bent Himself To Nearer, Lowlier, Tasks; And Seeing, First, That Those Deflected Rays, Though It Were Only By The Faintest Bloom Of Colour, Imperceptible To Our Eyes, Must Dim The Vision Of Galileo'S Glass, He Made His Own New Weapon Of The Sky,-- That First Reflecting Telescope Which Should Hold In Its Deep Mirror, As In A Breathless Pool The Undistorted Image Of A Star. Iii In That Deep Night Where Galileo Groped Like A Blind Giant In Dreams To Find What Power Held Moons And Planets To Their Constant Road Through Vastness, Ordered Like A Moving Fleet; What Law So Married Them That They Could Not Clash Or Sunder, But Still Kept Their Rhythmic Pace As If Those Ancient Tales Indeed Were True And Some Great Angel Helmed Each Gliding Sphere; Many Had Sought An Answer. Many Had Caught Gleams Of The Truth; And Yet, As When A Torch Is Waved Above A Multitude At Night, And Shows Wild Streams Of Faces, All Confused, But Not The Single Law That Knits Them All Into An Ordered Nation, So Our Skies For All Those Fragmentary Glimpses, Whirled In Chaos, Till One Eagle-Spirit Soared, Found The One Law That Bound Them All In One, And Through That Awful Unity Upraised The Soul To That Which Made And Guides Them All. Did Newton, Dreaming In His Orchard There Beside The Dreaming Witham, See The Moon Burn Like A Huge Gold Apple In The Boughs And Wonder Why Should Moons Not Fall Like Fruit? Or Did He See As Those Old Tales Declare (Those Fairy-Tales That Gather Form And Fire Till, In One Jewel, They Pack The Whole Bright World) A Ripe Fruit Fall From Some Immortal Tree Of Knowledge, While He Wondered At What Height Would This Earth-Magnet Lose Its Darkling Power? Would Not The Fruit Fall Earthward, Though It Grew High O'Er The Hills As Yonder Brightening Cloud? Would Not The Selfsame Power That Plucked The Fruit Draw The White Moon, Then, Sailing In The Blue? Then, In One Flash, As Light And Song Are Born, And The Soul Wakes, He Saw It--This Dark Earth Holding The Moon That Else Would Fly Through Space To Her Sure Orbit, As A Stone Is Held In A Whirled Sling; And, By The Selfsame Power, Her Sister Planets Guiding All Their Moons; While, Exquisitely Balanced And Controlled In One Vast System, Moons And Planets Wheeled Around One Sovran Majesty, The Sun. Iv Light And More Light! The Spark From Heaven Was There, The Flash Of That Reintegrating Fire Flung From Heaven'S Altars, Where All Light Is Born, To Feed The Imagination Of Mankind With Vision, And Reveal All Worlds In One. But Let No Dreamer Dream That His Great Work Sprang, Armed, Like Pallas From The Thunderer'S Brain. With Infinite Patience He Must Test And Prove His Vision Now, In Those Clear Courts Of Truth Whose Absolute Laws (Bemocked By Shallower Minds As Less Than Dreams, Less Than The Faithless Faith That Fears The Truth, Lest Truth Should Slay The Dream) Are Man'S One Guide To His Transcendent Heaven; For There'S No Wandering Splendour In The Soul, But In The Highest Heaven Of All Is One With Absolute Reality. None Can Climb Back To That Fount Of Beauty But Through Pain. Long, Long He Toiled, Comparing First The Curves Traced By The Cannon-Ball As It Soared And Fell With That Great Curving Road Across The Sky Traced By The Sailing Moon. Was Earth A Loadstone Holding Them To Their Paths By That Dark Force Whose Mystery Men Have Cloaked Beneath A Name? Yet, When He Came To Test And Prove, He Found That All The Great Deflections Of The Moon, Her Shining Cadences From The Path Direct, Were Utterly Inharmonious With The Law Of That Dark Force, At Such A Distance Acting, Measured From Earth'S Own Centre.... For Three Long Years, Newton Withheld His Hope Until That Day When Light Was Brought From France, New Light, New Hope, In One Small Glistening Fact, Clear-Cut As Any Diamond; And To Him Loaded With All Significance, Like The Point Of Light That Shows Where Constellations Burn. Picard In France--All Glory To Her Name Who Is Herself A Light Among All Lands-- Had Measured Earth'S Diameter Once More With Exquisite Precision. To The Throng, Those Few Corrected Ciphers, His Results, Were Less Than Nothing; Yet They Changed The World. For Newton Seized Them And, With Trembling Hands, Began To Work His Problem Out Anew. Then, Then, As On The Page Those Figures Turned To Hieroglyphs Of Heaven, And He Beheld The Moving Moon, With Awful Cadences Falling Into The Path His Law Ordained, Even To The Foot And Second, His Hand Shook And Dropped The Pencil. "Work It Out For Me," He Cried To Those Around Him; For The Weight Of That Celestial Music Overwhelmed Him; And, On His Page, Those Burning Hieroglyphs Were Thrones And Principalities And Powers... For Far Beyond, Immeasurably Far Beyond Our Sun, He Saw That River Of Suns We Call The Milky Way, That Glittering Host Powdering The Night, Each Grain Of Solar Blaze Divided From Its Neighbour By A Gulf Too Wide For Thought To Measure; Each A Sun Huger Than Ours, With Its Own Fleet Of Worlds, Visible And Invisible. Those Bright Throngs That Seemed Dispersed Like A Defeated Host Through Blindly Wandering Skies, Now, At The Word Of One Great Dreamer, Height O'Er Height Revealed Hints Of A Vaster Order, And Moved On In Boundless Intricacies Of Harmony Around One Centre, Deeper Than All Suns, The Burning Throne Of God. V He Could Not Sleep. That Intellect, Whose Wings Dared The Cold Ultimate Heights Of Space And Time Sank, Like A Wounded Eagle, With Dazed Eyes Back, Headlong Through The Clouds To Throb On Earth. What Shaft Had Pierced Him? That Which Also Pierced His Great Forebears--The Hate Of Little Men. They Flocked Around Him, And They Flung Their Dust Into The Sensitive Eyes And Laughed To See How Dust Could Blind Them. If One Prickling Grain Could So Put Out His Vision And So Torment That Delicate Brain, What Weakness! How The Mind That Seemed To Dwarf Us, Dwindles! Is He Mad? So Buzzed The Fools, Whose Ponderous Mental Wheels Nor Dust, Nor Grit, Nor Stones, Nor Rocks Could Irk Even For An Instant. Newton Could Not Sleep, But All That Careful Malice Could Design Was Blindly Fostered By Well-Meaning Folly, And Great Sane Folk Like Mr. Samuel Pepys Canvassed His Weakness And Slept Sound All Night. For Little Samuel With His Rosy Face Came Chirping Into A Coffee-House One Day Like A Plump Robin, "Sir, The Unhappy State Of Mr. Isaac Newton Grieves Me Much. Last Week I Had A Letter From Him, Filled With Strange Complainings, Very Curious Hints, Such As, I Grieve To Say, Are Common Signs --I Have Observed It Often--Of Worse To Come. He Said That He Could Neither Eat Nor Sleep Because Of All The Embroilments He Was In, Hinting At Nameless Enemies. Then He Begged My Pardon, Very Strangely. I Believe Physicians Would Confirm Me In My Fears. 'Tis Very Sad.... Only Last Night, I Found Among My Papers Certain Lines Composed By--Whom D'You Think?--My Lord Of Halifax (Or So Dear Mrs. Porterhouse Assured Me) Expressing, Sir, The Uttermost Satisfaction In Mr. Newton'S Talent. Sir, He Wrote Answering The Charge That Science Would Put Out The Light Of Beauty, These Very Handsome Lines: 'When Newton Walked By Witham Stream There Fell No Chilling Shade To Blight The Drifting Naiad'S Dream Or Make Her Garland Fade. The Mist Of Sun Was Not Less Bright That Crowned Urania'S Hair. He Robbed It Of Its Colder Light, But Left The Rainbow There.' They Are Very Neat And Handsome, You'll Agree. Solid In Sense As Dryden At His Best, And Smooth As Waller, But With Something More,-- That Touch Of Grace, That Airier Elegance Which Only Rank Can Give. 'Tis Very Sad That One So Nobly Praised Should--Well, No Matter!-- I Am Told, Sir, That These Troubles All Began At Cambridge, When His Manuscripts Were Burned. He Had Been Working, In His Curious Way, All Through The Night; And, In The Morning Greyness Went Down To Chapel, Leaving On His Desk A Lighted Candle. You Can Imagine It,-- A Sadly Sloven Altar To His Muse, Littered With Papers, Cups, And Greasy Plates Of Untouched Food. I Am Told That He Would Eat His Monday'S Breakfast, Sir, On Tuesday Morning, Such Was His Absent Way! When He Returned, He Found That Diamond (His Little Dog Named Diamond, For A Black Patch Near His Tail) Had Overturned The Candle. All His Work Was Burned To Ashes. It Struck Him To The Quick, Though, When His Terrier Fawned About His Feet, He Showed No Anger. He Was Heard To Say, 'O Diamond, Diamond, Little Do You Know...' But, From That Hour, Ah Well, We'll Say No More." Halley Was There That Day, And Spoke Up Sharply, "Sir, There Are Hints And Hints! Do You Mean More?" --"I Do, Sir," Chirruped Samuel, Mightily Pleased To Find All Eyes, For Once, On His Fat Face. "I Fear His Intellects Are Disordered, Sir." --"Good! That'S An Answer! I Can Deal With That. But Tell Me First," Quoth Halley, "Why He Wrote That Letter, A Week Ago, To Mr. Pepys." --"Why, Sir," Piped Samuel, Innocent Of The Trap, "I Had An Argument In This Coffee-House Last Week, With Certain Gentlemen, On The Laws Of Chance, And What Fair Hopes A Man Might Have Of Throwing Six At Dice. I Happened To Say That Mr. Isaac Newton Was My Friend, And Promised I Would Sound Him." "Sir," Said Halley, "You'll Pardon Me, But I Forgot To Tell You I Heard, A Minute Since, Outside These Doors, A Very Modish Woman Of The Town, Or Else A Most Delicious Lady Of Fashion, A Melting Creature With A Bold Black Eye, A Bosom Like Twin Doves; And, Sir, A Mouth Like A Turk'S Dream Of Paradise. She Cooed, 'Is Mr. Pepys Within?' I Greatly Fear That They Denied You To Her!" Off Ran Pepys! "A Hint'S A Hint," Laughed Halley, "And So To Bed. But, As For Isaac Newton, Let Me Say, Whatever His Embroilments Were, He Solved With Just One Hour Of Thought, Not Long Ago The Problem Set By Leibnitz As A Challenge To All Of Europe. He Published His Result Anonymously, But Leibnitz, When He Saw It, Cried Out, At Once, Old Enemy As He Was, 'That'S Newton, None But Newton! From This Claw I Know The Old Lion, In His Midnight Lair.'" Vi (Sir Isaac Newton Writes To Mrs. Vincent At Woolthorpe.) Your Letter, On My Eightieth Birthday, Wakes Memories, Like Violets, In This London Gloom. You Have Never Failed, For More Than Three-Score Years To Send These Annual Greetings From The Haunts Where You And I Were Boy And Girl Together. A Day Must Come-It Cannot Now Be Far-- When I Shall Have No Power To Thank You For Them, So Let Me Tell You Now That, All My Life, They Have Come To Me With Healing In Their Wings Like Birds From Home, Birds From The Happy Woods Above The Witham, Where You Walked With Me When You And I Were Young. Do You Remember Old Barley--How He Tried To Teach Us Drawing? He Found Some Promise, I Believe, In You, But Quite Despaired Of Me. I Treasure All Those Little Sketches That You Sent To Me Each Christmas, Carrying Each Some Glimpse Of Home. There'S One I Love That Shows The Narrow Lane Behind The Schoolhouse, Where I Had That Bout Of Schoolboy Fisticuffs. I Have Never Known More Pleasure, I Believe, Than When I Beat That Black-Haired Bully And Won, For My Reward, Those April Smiles From You. I See You Still Standing Among The Fox-Gloves In The Hedge; And Just Behind You, In The Field, I Know There Was A Patch Of Aromatic Flowers,-- Rest-Harrow, Was It? Yes; Their Tangled Roots Pluck At The Harrow; Halt The Sharp Harrow Of Thought, Even In Old Age. I Never Breathe Their Scent But I Am Back In Boyhood, Dreaming There Over Some Book, Among The Diligent Bees, Until You Join Me, And We Dream Together. They Called Me Lazy, Then. Oddly Enough It Was That Fight That Stirred My Mind To Beat My Bully At His Books, And Head The School; Blind Rivalry, At First. By Such Fond Tricks The Invisible Power That Shapes Us--Not Ourselves-- Punishes, Teaches, Leads Us Gently On Like Children, All Our Lives, Until We Grasp A Sudden Meaning And Are Born, Through Death Into Full Knowledge That Our Guide Was Love. Another Picture Shows Those Woods Of Ours, Around Whose Warm Dark Edges In The Spring Primroses, Knots Of Living Sun