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 DE2I | 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
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about Galileo poem by Alfred Noyes
Best Poems of Alfred Noyes