Galileo Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: A B CDAEFGBHIJAKLMNCOPQD GRSBLTUVDWLXYXZA2B2H C2FD2TE2WF2G2LTH2GAI 2J2K2L2M2N2J2I2O2P2K O2Q2R2S2T2J2U2XV2DPW 2I2S2CM2Q2B2XX2Y2GAZ 2SHA3B3AB2C3D3E3F3G3 H3I3J3K3L3FM3LN3A2IO 3P3Q3R3G3S3T3U3V3ATL W3X3Y3Z3A4B4CU2C4F2D 4E4F4G4H4I4K3B4J4K4F 2LF4F2L4M4N4DS2B4O4G C2M2F3D2P4ZA3L3Q4D2R 4S4T4J2U4DV4IDIDW4F4 S3I3DX4Y4Z4XG3SGDB4E 2U4U2GY2LF3LDB3I2V4I 2W4DM4I2DDA3S3DC2HG3 S4LI3LAA2X2M2E2M2X2O 2XBLI3B3B2PLQ4B2EDN4 HB3LH4B3DLB3B3DB3LXB 3B3LHB3Q4B3XS3TE2C3H 3MDTB3N4BO2XDU3B3B3L XELB3B3HB3S3B3DB3B3B 3S2LB3GM2DB3S3Q4W2TG LA A I GAN4B3B3U4HB3LJE2B3D B3Y2LC3B3B3M2WB3B3GR MXB3LB3LXLLE2LDB3DG A B3U2B3NH3B3RB3W2HS2B 3LLDC3B3I2U2LL C3 B3B3T3S2B3TTLLC3DM2E 2S2S2DB3B3C3EE2LTDB3 TDB3B3B3K3TC3B3B3M2 D TD M2Y2DDA2O2DQ4B3B3B3B 3N3DC3DN4M2B3DE2N4B3 U4B3DB3C3S2DC3J4DN4B 3NB3BU4O2T2LM2 L S2B3BEDC3C3B3C3B3B3C 3DC3DC3F3B3C3B3B3DB3 D I2DE2DC3B3DHB3RB3DB3 B3B3B3B2C3B3B3IB3C3L 3B3B3DB3DB3B3B3RDB3B 3B3C3C3 NNC3C3DBDB3DB3C3C3DD B3B3C3DO2DB3C3B3B3B3 C3B3Y2B3DB3DE2B3B3B3 DC3B3DDB3C3RC3DC3DB3 I2DC3B3B3B3B3 L4B3E2B3F3B3B3B3B3C3 DE2

I	A
	-
	-
Celeste in the Convent at Arcetri writes to her old lover at Rome	B
	-
My friend my dearest friend my own dear love	C
I who am dead to love and see around me	D
The funeral tapers lighted send this cry	A
Out of my heart to yours before the end	E
You told me once you would endure the rack	F
To save my heart one pang O save it now	G
Last night there came a dreadful word from Rome	B
For my dear lord and father summoning him	H
Before the inquisitors there to take his trial	I
At threescore years and ten There is a threat	J
Of torture if his lips will not deny	A
The truth his eyes have seen	K
You know my father	L
You know me too You never will believe	M
That he and I are enemies of the faith	N
Could I who put away all earthly love	C
Deny the Cross to which I nailed this flesh	O
Could he who on the night when all those heavens	P
Opened above us with their circling worlds	Q
Knelt with me crushed beneath that weight of glory	D
Forget the Maker of that glory now	G
You'll not believe it Neither would the Church	R
Had not his enemies poisoned all the springs	S
And fountain heads of truth It is not Rome	B
That summons him but Magini Sizy Scheiner	L
Lorini all the blind pedantic crew	T
That envy him his fame and hate his works	U
For dwarfing theirs	V
Must such things always be	D
When truth is born	W
Only five nights ago we walked together	L
My father and I here in the Convent garden	X
And as the dusk turned everything to dreams	Y
We dreamed together of his work well done	X
And happiness to be We did not dream	Z
That even then muttering above his book	A2
His enemies those enemies whom the truth	B2
Stings into hate were plotting to destroy him	H
Yet something shadowed him I recall his words	C2
The grapes are ripening See Celeste how black	F
And heavy We shall have good wine this year	D2
Yes all grows ripe I said your life work too	T
Dear father Are you happy now to know	E2
Your book is printed and the new world born	W
He shook his head a little sadly I thought	F2
Autumn's too full of endings Fruits grow ripe	G2
And fall and then comes winter	L
Not for you	T
Never I said for those who write their names	H2
In heaven Think father through all ages now	G
No one can ever watch that starry sky	A
Without remembering you Your fame	I2
And there	J2
He stopped me laid his hand upon my arm	K2
And standing in the darkness with dead leaves	L2
Drifting around him and his bare grey head	M2
Bowed in complete humility his voice	N2
Shaken and low he said like one in prayer	J2
Celeste beware of that Say truth not fame	I2
If there be any happiness on earth	O2
It springs from truth alone the truth we live	P2
In act and thought I have looked up there and seen	K
Too many worlds to talk of fame on earth	O2
Fame on this grain of dust among the stars	Q2
The trumpet of a gnat that thinks to halt	R2
The great sun clusters moving on their way	S2
In silence Yes that's fame but truth Celeste	T2
Truth and its laws are constant even up there	J2
That's where one man may face and fight the world	U2
His weakness turns to strength He is made one	X
With universal forces and he holds	V2
The password to eternity	D
Gate after gate swings back through all the heavens	P
No sentry halts him and no flaming sword	W2
Say truth Celeste not fame	I2
No for I'll say	S2
A better word I told him I'll say love	C
He took my face between his hands and said	M2
His face all dark between me and the stars	Q2
What's love Celeste but this dear face of truth	B2
Upturned to heaven	X
He left me and I heard	X2
Some twelve hours later that this man whose soul	Y2
Was dedicate to Truth was threatened now	G
With torture if his lips did not deny	A
The truth he loved	Z2
I tell you all these things	S
Because to help him you must understand him	H
And even you may doubt him if you hear	A3
Only those plausible outside witnesses	B3
Who never heard his heart beats as have I	A
So let me tell you all his quest for truth	B2
And how this hate began	C3
Even from the first	D3
He made his enemies of those almost minds	E3
Who chanced upon some new thing in the dark	F3
And could not see its meaning for he saw	G3
Always the law illumining it within	H3
So when he heard of that strange optic glass	I3
Which brought the distance near he thought it out	J3
By reason where that other hit upon it	K3
Only by chance He made his telescope	L3
And O how vividly that day comes back	F
When in their gorgeous robes the Senate stood	M3
Beside him on that high Venetian tower	L
Scanning the bare blue sea that showed no speck	N3
Of sail Then one by one he bade them look	A2
And one by one they gasped a miracle	I
Brown sails and red a fleet of fishing boats	O3
See how the bright foam bursts around their bows	P3
See how the bare legged sailors walk the decks	Q3
Then quickly looking up as if to catch	R3
The vision ere it tricked them all they saw	G3
Was empty sea again	S3
Many believed	T3
That all was trickery but he bade them note	U3
The colours of the boats and count their sails	V3
Then in a little while the naked eye	A
Saw on the sky line certain specks that grew	T
Took form and colour and within an hour	L
Their magic fleet came foaming into port	W3
Whereat old senators wagging their white beards	X3
And plucking at golden chains with stiff old claws	Y3
Too feeble for the sword hilt squeaked at once	Z3
This glass will give us great advantages	A4
In time of war	B4
War war O God of love	C
Even amidst their wonder at Thy world	U2
Dazed with new beauty gifted with new powers	C4
These old men dreamed of blood This was the thought	F2
To which all else must pander if he hoped	D4
Even for one hour to see those dull eyes blaze	E4
At his discoveries	F4
Wolves he called them wolves	G4
And yet he humoured them He stooped to them	H4
Promised them more advantages and talked	I4
As elders do to children You may call it	K3
Weakness and yet could any man do more	B4
Alone against a world with such a trust	J4
To guard for future ages All his life	K4
He has had some weanling truth to guard has fought	F2
Desperately to defend it taking cover	L
Wherever he could behind old fallen trees	F4
Of superstition or ruins of old thought	F2
He has read horoscopes to keep his work	L4
Among the stars in favour with his prince	M4
I tell you this that you may understand	N4
What seems inconstant in him It may be	D
That he was wrong in these things and must pay	S2
A dreadful penalty But you must explore	B4
His mind's great ranges plains and lonely peaks	O4
Before you know him as I know him now	G
How could he talk to children but in words	C2
That children understand Have not some said	M2
That God Himself has made His glory dark	F3
For men to bear it In his human sphere	D2
My father has done this	P4
War was the dream	Z
That filmed those old men's eyes They did not hear	A3
My father when he hinted at his hope	L3
Of opening up the heavens for mankind	Q4
With that new power of bringing far things near	D2
My heart burned as I heard him but they blinked	R4
Like owls at noonday Then I saw him turn	S4
Desperately to humour them from thoughts	T4
Of heaven to thoughts of warfare	J2
Late that night	U4
My own dear lord and father came to me	D
And whispered with a glory in his face	V4
As one who has looked on things too beautiful	I
To breathe aloud Come out Celeste and see	D
A miracle	I
I followed him He showed me	D
Looking along his outstretched hand a star	W4
A point of light above our olive trees	F4
It was the star called Jupiter And then	S3
He bade me look again but through his glass	I3
I feared to look at first lest I should see	D
Some wonder never meant for mortal eyes	X4
He too had felt the same not fear but awe	Y4
As if his hand were laid upon the veil	Z4
Between this world and heaven	X
Then I too saw	G3
Small as the smallest bead of mist that clings	S
To a spider's thread at dawn the floating disk
Of what had been a star a planet now	G
And near it with no disk that eyes could see	D
Four needle points of light unseen before	B4
The moons of Jupiter he whispered low	E2
I have watched them as they moved from night to night	U4
A system like our own although the world	U2
Their fourfold lights and shadows make so strange
Must as I think be mightier than we dreamed
A Titan planet Earth begins to fade
And dwindle yes the heavens are opening now	G
Perhaps up there this night some lonely soul	Y2
Gazes at earth watches our dawning moon
And wonders as we wonder	L
In that dark	F3
We knelt together	L
Very strange to see	D
The vanity and fickleness of princes	B3
Before his enemies had provoked the wrath
Of Rome against him he had given the name	I2
Of Medicean stars to those four moons
In honour of Prince Cosmo This aroused
The court of France to seek a lasting place	V4
Upon the map of heaven A letter came	I2
Beseeching him to find another star	W4
Even more brilliant and to call it Henri	D
After the reigning and most brilliant prince	M4
Of France They did not wish the family name	I2
Of Bourbon This would dissipate the glory	D
No they preferred his proper name of Henri	D
We read it together in the garden here	A3
Weeping with laughter never dreaming then	S3
That this this this could stir the little hearts
Of men to envy	D
O but afterwards	C2
The blindness of the men who thought themselves
His enemies The men who never knew him	H
The men that had set up a thing of straw	G3
And called it by his name and wished to burn	S4
Their image and himself in one wild fire	L
Men Were they men or children They refused
Even to look through Galileo's glass	I3
Lest seeing might persuade them Even that sage
That great Aristotelian Julius Libri	L
Holding his breath there like a fractious child
Until his cheeks grew purple and the veins
Were bursting on his brow swore he would die	A
Sooner than look	A2
And that poor monstrous babe
Not long thereafter kept his word and died
Died of his own pent rage as I have heard	X2
Whereat my lord and father shook his head	M2
And smiling somewhat sadly oh you know	E2
That smile of his more deadly to the false
Than even his reasoning murmured Libri dead	M2
Who called the moons of Jupiter absurd	X2
He swore he would not look at them from earth	O2
I hope he saw them on his way to heaven	X
Welser in Augsburg Clavius at Rome	B
Scoffed at the fabled moons of Jupiter	L
It was a trick they said He had made a glass	I3
To fool the world with false appearances	B3
Perhaps the lens was flawed Perhaps his wits
Were wandering Anything rather than the truth	B2
Which might disturb the mighty in their seat
Let Galileo hold his own opinions	P
I Clavius will hold mine
He wrote to Kepler	L
You Kepler are the first whose open mind	Q4
And lofty genius could accept for truth	B2
The things which I have seen With you for friend	E
The abuse of the multitude will not trouble me	D
Jupiter stands in heaven and will stand	N4
Though all the sycophants bark at him	H
In Pisa
Florence Bologna Venice Padua
Many have seen the moons These witnesses	B3
Are silent and uncertain Do you wonder	L
Most of them could not even when they saw them	H4
Distinguish Mars from Jupiter Shall we side
With Heraclitus or Democritus	B3
I think my Kepler we will only laugh
At this immeasurable stupidity	D
Picture the leaders of our college here	L
A thousand times I have offered them the proof
Of their own eyes They sleep here like gorged snakes	B3
Refusing even to look at planets moons	B3
Or telescope They think philosophy	D
Is all in books and that the truth is found
Neither in nature nor the Universe	B3
But in comparing texts How you would laugh
Had you but heard our first philosopher	L
Before the Grand Duke trying to tear down
And argue the new planets out of heaven	X
Now by his own weird logic and closed eyes	B3
And now by magic spells	B3
How could he help
Despising them a little It's an error	L
Even for a giant to despise a midge
For when the giant reels beneath some stroke
Of fate the buzzing clouds will swoop upon him	H
Cluster and feed upon his bleeding wounds	B3
And do what midges can to sting him blind	Q4
These human midges have not missed their chance	B3
They have missed no smallest spot upon that sun	X
My mother was not married they have found
To my dear father All his children then	S3
And doubtless all their thoughts are evil too	T
But who that judged him ever sought to know	E2
Whether as evil sometimes wears the cloak
Of virtue nobler virtue in this man	C3
Might wear that outward semblance of a sin	H3
Yes even you who love me may believe	M
These thoughts are born of my own tainted heart
And yet I write them kneeling in my cell
And whisper them to One who blesses me	D
Here from His Cross upon the bare grey wall
So if you love me bless me also you	T
By helping him Make plain to all you meet
What part his enemies have played in this	B3
How some one somehow altered the command	N4
Laid on him all those years ago by Rome	B
So that it reads to day as if he vowed
Never to think or breathe that this round earth	O2
Moves with its sister planets round the sun	X
'Tis true he promised not to write or speak
As if this truth were 'stablished equally	D
With God's eternal laws and so he wrote	U3
His Dialogues reasoning for it and against
And gave the last word to Simplicio	B3
Saying that human reason must bow down
Before the power of God
And even this	B3
His enemies have twisted to a sneer	L
Against the Pope and cunningly declared
Simplicio to be Urban	X
Why my friend	E
There were three dolphins on the titlepage
Each with the tail of another in its mouth
The censor had not seen this and they swore	L
It held some hidden meaning Then they found
The same three dolphins sprawled on all the books	B3
Landini printed at his Florence press	B3
They tried another charge
I am not afraid
Of any truth that they can bring against him	H
But O my friend I more than fear their lies	B3
I do not fear the justice of our God
But I do fear the vanity of men	S3
Even of Urban not His Holiness	B3
But Urban the weak man who may resent
And in resentment rush half way to meet
This cunning lie with credence Vanity	D
O half the wrongs on earth arise from that
Greed and war's pomp all envy and most hate
Are born of that while one dear humble heart
Beating with love for man between two thieves	B3
Proves more than all His wounds and miracles	B3
Our Crucified to be the Son of God
Say that I long to see him that my prayers	B3
Knock at the gates of mercy night and day	S2
Urge him to leave the judgment now with God
And strive no more	L
If he be right the stars	B3
Fight for him in their courses Let him bow	G
His poor dishonoured glorious old grey head	M2
Before this storm and then come home to me	D
O quickly or I fear 'twill be too late
For I am dying Do not tell him this	B3
But I must live to hold his hands again	S3
And know that he is safe
I dare not leave him helpless and half blind	Q4
Half father and half child to rack and cord	W2
By all the Christ within you save him you	T
And though you may have ceased to love me now	G
One faithful shadow in your own last hour	L
Shall watch beside you till all shadows die	A
And heaven unfold to bless you where I failed
	-
	-
	-
	-
II	A
	-
	-
Scheiner writes to Castelli after the Trial	I
	-
What think you of your Galileo now	G
Your hero that like Ajax should defy	A
The lightning Yesterday I saw him stand	N4
Trembling before our court of Cardinals	B3
Trembling before the colour of their robes	B3
As sheep before the slaughter at the sight	U4
And smell of blood His lips could hardly speak
And mark you neither rack nor cord had touched him	H
Out of the Inquisition's five degrees	B3
Of rigor first the public threat of torture	L
Second the repetition of the threat	J
Within the torture chamber where we show	E2
The instruments of torture to the accused
Third the undressing and the binding fourth
Laying him on the rack then fifth and last
Torture territio realis out of these	B3
Your Galileo reached the second only	D
When clapping both his hands against his sides	B3
He whined about a rupture that forbade
These extreme courses Great heroic soul	Y2
Dropped like a cur into a sea of terror	L
He sank right under Then he came up gasping
Ready to swear deny abjure recant
Anything everything Foolish weak old man	C3
Who had been so proud of his discoveries	B3
And dared to teach his betters How we grinned
To see him kneeling there and whispering thus	B3
Through his white lips bending his old grey head	M2
I Galileo Galilei born	W
A Florentine now seventy years of age
Kneeling before you having before mine eyes	B3
And touching with my hands the Holy Gospels	B3
Swear that I always have believed do now	G
And always will believe what Holy Church	R
Has held and preached and taught me to believe	M
And now whereas I rightly am accused
Of heresy having falsely held the sun	X
To be the centre of our Universe	B3
And also that this earth is not the centre	L
But moves	B3
I most illogically desire	L
Completely to expunge this dark suspicion	X
So reasonably conceived I now abjure	L
Detest and curse these errors and I swear	L
That should I know another friend or foe	E2
Holding the selfsame heresy as myself
I will denounce him to the Inquisitor	L
In whatsoever place I chance to be	D
So help me God and these His Holy Gospels	B3
Which with my hands I touch
You will observe
His promise to denounce Beware Castelli	D
What think you of your Galileo now	G
	-
	-
	-
	-
III	A
	-
	-
Castelli writes enclosing Schemer's letter to Campanella
	-
What think I This that he has laid his hands	B3
Like Samson on the pillars of our world	U2
And one more trembling utterance such as this	B3
Will overwhelm us all
O Campanella
You know that I am loyal to our faith	N
As Galileo too has always been	H3
You know that I believe as he believes	B3
In the one Catholic Apostolic Church	R
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	B3
And that once more we suffered with our Lord	W2
Were persecuted crucified with Him	H
I tell you Campanella on that day	S2
When Galileo faced our Cardinals	B3
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	L
Before the court of Pilate Peter there	L
Denied Him once again and as for me	D
Never has all my soul so humbly knelt
To God in Christ as when that sad old man	C3
Bowed his grey head and knelt at seventy years	B3
To acquiesce and shake the world with shame	I2
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	U2
So greatly bettered that the ancient cry	L
Despised rejected hails our God no more	L
	-
	-
	-
	-
IV
	-
	-
Celeste writes to her father in his imprisonment at Siena	C3
	-
Dear father it will seem a thousand years	B3
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	B3
A copy of your sentence I was grieved	T3
And yet it gladdened me for I found a way	S2
To be of use by taking on myself
Your penance Therefore if you fail in this	B3
If you forget it and indeed to save you	T
The trouble of remembering it your child
Will do it for you	T
Ah could she do more	L
How willingly would your Celeste endure	L
A straiter prison than she lives in now	C3
To set you free	D
A prison I have said	M2
And yet if you were here 'twould not be so	E2
When you were pent in Rome I used to say	S2
Would he were at Siena God fulfilled
That wish You are at Siena and I now say	S2
Would he were at Arcctri	D
So perhaps	B3
Little by little angels can be wooed
Each day by some new prayer of mine or yours	B3
To bring you wholly back to me and save
Some few of the flying days that yet remain	C3
You see these other Nuns have each their friend	E
Their patron Saint their ever near devoto	E2
To whom they tell their joys and griefs but I	L
Have only you dear father and if you	T
Were only near me I could want no more	D
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	B3
Even your watch tower seems to wait for you	T
And though the fruit is not so good this year	D
The vines were hurt by hail I think and thieves	B3
Have climbed the wall too often for the pears	B3
The crop of peas is good and only waits	B3
Your hand to gather it	K3
In the dovecote too	T
You'll find some plump young pigeons We must make
A feast for your return	C3
In my small plot
Here at the Convent better watched than yours	B3
I raised a little harvest With the price	B3
I got for it I had three Masses said	M2
For my dear father's sake
	-
	-
	-
	-
V	D
	-
	-
Galileo writes to his friend Castelli after his return to	T
Arcetri	D
	-
Castelli O Castelli she is dead	M2
I found her driving death back with her soul	Y2
Till I should come
I could not even see	D
Her face These useless eyes had spent their power	D
On distant worlds and lost that last faint look	A2
Of love on earth	O2
I am in the dark Castelli	D
Utterly and irreparably blind	Q4
The Universe which once these outworn eyes	B3
Enlarged so far beyond its ancient bounds	B3
Is henceforth shrunk into that narrow space	B3
Which I myself inhabit
Yet I found
Even in the dark her tears against my face	B3
Her thin soft childish arms around my neck	N3
And her voice whispering love undying love
Asking me at this last to tell her true	D
If we should meet again	C3
Her trust in me	D
Had shaken her faith in what my judges held
And as I felt her fingers clutch my hand	N4
Like a child drowning Tell me the truth she said	M2
Before I lose the light of your dear face	B3
It seemed so strange that dying she could see me	D
While I had lost her tell me before I go	E2
Believe in Love was all my soul could breathe
I heard no answer Only I felt her hand	N4
Clasp mine and hold it tighter Then she died
And left me to my darkness Could I guess	B3
At unseen glories in this deeper night	U4
Make new discoveries of profounder realms	B3
Within the soul O could I find Him there	D
Rise to Him through His harmonies of law	B3
And make His will my own	C3
This much at least
I know already that in some strange way	S2
His law implies His love for failing that
All grows discordant and the primal Power	D
Ignobler than His children	C3
So I trust	J4
One day to find her waiting for me still
When all things are made new	D
I raise this torch
Of knowledge It is one with my right hand	N4
And the dark sap that keeps it burning flows	B3
Out of my heart and yet for all my faith	N
It shows me only darkness	B3
Was I wrong
Did I forget the subtler truth of Rome	B
And in my pride obscure the world's one light	U4
Did I subordinate to this moving earth	O2
Our swiftlier moving God
O my Celeste	T2
Once once at least you knew far more than I	L
And she is dead Castelli she is dead	M2
	-
	-
	-
	-
VI	L
	-
	-
Viviani many years later writes to a friend in England
	-
I was his last disciple as you say	S2
I went to him at seventeen years of age
And offered him my hands and eyes to use	B3
When voicing the true mind and heart of Rome	B
Father Castelli his most faithful friend	E
Wrote for my master that compassionate plea	D
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	C3
And opened the eyes of all that are to come
But out of England even then there shone	C3
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	B3
And the first star was trembling overhead
When quietly as a messenger from heaven	C3
Moving unseen through his own purer realm
Amongst the shadows of our mortal world
A young man with a strange light on his face	B3
Knocked at the door of Galileo's house	B3
His name was Milton	C3
By the hand of God
He the one living soul on earth with power	D
To read the starry soul of this blind man	C3
Was led through Italy to his prison door	D
He looked on Galileo touched his hand
O dark dark dark amid the blaze of noon	C3
Irrecoverably dark	F3
In after days	B3
He wrote it but it pulsed within him then	C3
And Galileo rising to his feet
And turning on him those unseeing eyes	B3
That had searched heaven and seen so many worlds	B3
Said to him You have found me	D
Often he told me in those last sad months	B3
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	D
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	I2
Is now among the mightiest in the world
And in his name I thank you	D
I am old
And I was very young when long ago	E2
I stood beside his poor dishonoured grave
Where hate denied him even an epitaph
And I have seen slowly and silently	D
His purer fame arising like a moon	C3
In marble on the twilight of those aisles	B3
At Santa Croce where the dread decree	D
Was read against him	H
Now against two wrongs	B3
Let me defend two victims first the Church	R
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	B3
Above his head and posturing like a mummer	D
Cried as one empty rumour now declares	B3
After his recantation yet it moves	B3
Out of this wild confusion fourfold wrongs	B3
Are heaped on both sides I would fain bring peace	B3
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	B2
But the blind hate and vanity of man	C3
Had Galileo but concealed the smile
With which like Socrates he answered fools	B3
They would not in the name of Christ have mixed
This hemlock in his chalice	B3
O pitiful	I
Pitiful human hearts that must deny
Their own unfolding heavens for one light word
Twisted by whispering malice	B3
Did he mean	C3
Simplicio in his dialogues for the Pope	L3
Doubtful enough the name was borrowed straight
From older dialogues	B3
If he gave one thought
Of Urban's to Simplicio you know well
How composite are all characters in books	B3
How authors find their colours here and there	D
And paint both saints and villains from themselves	B3
No matter This was Urban Make it clear	D
Simplicio means a simpleton The saints	B3
Are aroused by ridicule to most human wrath
Urban was once his friend This hint of ours	B3
Kills all of that And so we mortals close	B3
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	R
Fathers and priests who in their lowlier sphere	D
Moved nearer than her cardinals to the Christ
These were the very Rome and held her keys	B3
Those who charge Rome with hatred of the light
Would charge the sun with darkness and accuse	B3
This dome of sky for all the blood red wrongs	B3
That men commit beneath it Art and song
That found her once in Europe their sole shrine	C3
And sanctuary absolve her from that stain	C3
	-
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	N
Whose faith	N
His friends' his Protestant followers' or his own	C3
Faced by the torture that sublime old man	C3
Was still a faithful Catholic and his thought
Plunged deeper than his Protestant followers knew	D
His aim was not to strike a blow at Rome	B
But to confound his enemies He believed
As humbly as Castelli or Celeste
That there is nothing absolute but that Power	D
With which his Church confronted him To this	B3
He bowed his head acknowledging that his light
Was darkness but affirming all the more	D
That Ptolemy's light was even darker yet
Read your own Protestant Milton who derived
His mighty argument from my master's lips	B3
Whether the sun predominant in heaven	C3
Rise on the earth or earth rise on the sun	C3
Leave them to God above Him serve and fear	D
Just as in boyhood when my master watched
The swinging lamp in the cathedral there	D
At Pisa and by one finger on his pulse	B3
Found that although the great bronze miracle swung
Through ever shortening spaces yet it moved
More slowly and so still swung in equal times	B3
He straight devised another boon to man	C3
Those pulse clocks which by many a fevered bed
Our doctors use dreamed of that timepiece too	D
Whose punctual swinging pendulum on earth	O2
Measures the starry periods and to day
Talks peacefully to children by the fire	D
Like an old grandad full of ancient tales	B3
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	C3
Of red gold hair and deep ethereal eyes	B3
What odorous clouds of incense round him rose	B3
Was conscious in the dimness of great throngs	B3
Kneeling around him shared in his own heart
The music and the silence and the cry
O salutaris hostia so now	C3
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	B3
Were comprehended like the swinging lamp
Within that great cathedral of his soul	Y2
Often he bade me in that desolate house	B3
Il Giojello of old a jewel of light
Read to him one sad letter till he knew	D
The most of it by heart and while he walked
His garden leaning on my arm at times	B3
I think he quite forgot that I was there	D
For he would quietly murmur it to himself
As if she had sent it half an hour ago	E2
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	B3
At this cold season it should please you much
Seeing how rare it is but with the rose	B3
You must accept its thorns which bring to mind
Our Lord's own bitter Passion Its green leaves	B3
Image the hope that through His Passion we	D
After this winter of our mortal life
May find the beauty of an eternal spring
In heaven	C3
Praise me the martyr out of whose agonies	B3
Some great new hope is born but not the fool
Who starves his heart to prove what eyes can see	D
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	D
To your own men of science fifty turns	B3
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	C3
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	R
But those that hid behind her He believed
His truth was all harmonious with her own	C3
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	D
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	C3
Could this be absolute Could he then be sure	D
That this great sun did not with all its worlds	B3
Move round a deeper centre What became	I2
Of your Copernicus then Could he be sure	D
Of any unchanging centre whence to judge
This myriad marching universe but one	C3
The absolute throne of God
Affirming this	B3
Eternal Rock his own uncertainties	B3
Became more certain and although his lips	B3
Breathed not a syllable of it though he stood
Silent as earth that also seemed so still
The very silence thundered yet it moves	B3
	-
He held to what he knew secured his work	L4
Through feeble hands like mine in other lands	B3
Not least in England as I think you know	E2
For partly through your poet as I believe
When his great music rolled upon your skies	B3
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	F3
He might behold this wheeling universe	B3
The planets gilding their ethereal horns	B3
With sun fire Many a pure immortal phrase	B3
In his own work as I have pondered it
Lived first upon the lips of him whose eyes	B3
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	C3
The music blown upon her sea bright air	D
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	E2
Into the great new realm I must not tread

Alfred Noyes

Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme

Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation

<< Sir John Herschel Remembers Poem William Herschel Conducts Poem>>

About Galileo

Galileo is a poem by Alfred Noyes. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.

Write your comment about Galileo poem by Alfred Noyes

Best Poems of Alfred Noyes

Recent Interactions*

This poem was read 34 times,

This poem was added to the favorite list by 0 members,

This poem was voted by 0 members.

(* Interactions only in the last 7 days)

New Poems

A Guidebook To My Future Friends
by Aditi Mukherjee
Ndihamba Ndisekhona" Chant Beat: Stomp-stomp-clap, Stomp-stomp-clap
by Asher Chipu
Ledige Praatjies
by Asher Chipu
Life Is Working
by Asher Chipu
The Knocking To The Door
by Asher Chipu
Ubizo: What You Are Called To Do
by Asher Chipu
Sum Obsession
by Asher Chipu
Locust
by Asher Chipu
Eden Passing
by Asher Chipu
I Am The Silence
by Asher Chipu

Popular Poets

1. Emily Dickinson(2415 poems)
2. Madison Julius Cawein(1231 poems)
3. Ella Wheeler Wilcox(1136 poems)
4. William Wordsworth(1016 poems)
5. Robert Burns(986 poems)
6. Edgar Albert Guest(945 poems)
7. Thomas Moore(849 poems)
8. Robert Service(831 poems)