Kepler Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST UVWXYRZA2B2WC2D2E2ZF 2G2H2I2E2J2K2L2M2N2O 2M2P2Q2R2M2M2S2T2M2J U2V2Q2M2W2M2F2P2X2X2 M2M2M2M2M2M2Y2X2Z2X2 X2X2X2RA3H2X2B3C3A3 C2X2X2X2O2X2A2X2X2A3 X2M2ROD3OE3M2Y2M2X2E 3M2F3X2M2G3X2M2O2H2Y 2X2F2X2X2X2H3M2M2I3O 2C2X2A3C3J3A3M2M2M2X 2K3X2L3X2M3M2X2RM2RX 2N3X2Y2O3X2N2RCP3X2M 2M2A3X2X2X2O2M2X2O3M 2Q3M2M2X2X2X2T2X2M2X 2E2R3S3O2M2E3X2M2A3M 2M2X2M2X2Y2M2X2X2M2M 2T3E3X2O3X2X2U3X2M2A 2Q3M2R2A3M2V3X2Y2X2W 3X2M2X3X2X2M2Y3X2X2Z 3RA4X2H3Y2X2F3X2F3T2 V3X2B4 M2M2F3Y2F3X2X2C4 C4N3Y2X2D4E4F3X2 X2X2F3M2S3X2M2F4X2X2 X2M2X2M2X2 M2X2Z3M2P3X2X2Y2D4OR F3C3X2RM2M2M2G4X2X2X 2M2M2M2 T2X2T2 M2X2A3X2F3F3X2X2P3X2 J3X2P3F3M2X2S3Y2M2X2 M2X2P3 X2X2F3X2R2X2D4X2 X2H4I4H4X2M2X2M2 X2X2X2X2X2RM2R X2X2M2X2M2J4M2J4 X2M2X2M2M2I4M2I4 F3P3X2T2M2X2M2M2X2M2 X2X2X2M2X2X2RX2X2A3 F3T2M2X2X2X2M2B3X2A4 M2X2M2X2K4M2X2D4X2L4 M2M2M2M4H3X2L4Z3X2M2 F3X2F3X2M2F3F3X2X2X2 X2X2X2 M2C3X2N4X2X2M2 S3 M2X2X2M2

John Kepler from the chimney corner watched	A
His wife Susannah with her sleeves rolled back	B
Making a salad in a big blue bowl	C
The thick tufts of his black rebellious hair	D
Brushed into sleek submission his trim beard	E
Snug as the soft round body of a thrush	F
Between the white wings of his fan shaped ruff	G
His best with the fine lace border spoke of guests	H
Expected and his quick grey humorous eyes	I
His firm red whimsical pleasure loving mouth	J
And all those elvish twinklings of his face	K
Were lit with eagerness Only between his brows	L
Perplexed beneath that subtle load of dreams	M
Two delicate shadows brooded	N
What does it mean	O
Sir Henry Wotton's letter breathed a hint	P
That Italy is prohibiting my book	Q
He muttered Then if Austria damns it too	R
Susannah mine we may be forced to choose	S
Between the truth and exile When he comes	T
He'll tell me more Ambassadors I suppose	U
Can only write in cipher while our world	V
Is steered to heaven by murderers and thieves	W
But if he'd wrapped his friendly warnings up	X
In a verse or two I might have done more work	Y
These last three days eh Sue	R
Look John said she	Z
What beautiful hearts of lettuce Tell me now	A2
How shall I mix it Will your English guest	B2
Turn up his nose at dandelion leaves	W
As crisp and young as these They've just the tang	C2
Of bitterness in their milk that gives a relish	D2
And makes all sweet and that's philosophy John	E2
Now these spring onions Would his Excellency	Z
Like sugared rose leaves better	F2
He's a poet	G2
Not an ambassador only so I think	H2
He'll like a cottage salad	I2
A poet John	E2
I hate their arrogant little insect ways	J2
I'll put a toadstool in	K2
Poets dear heart	L2
Can be divided into two clear kinds	M2
One that by virtue of a half grown brain	N2
Lives in a silly world of his own making	O2
A bubble blown by himself in which he flits	M2
And dizzily bombinates chanting 'I I I '	P2
For there is nothing in the heavens above	Q2
Or the earth or hell beneath but goes to swell	R2
His personal pronoun Bring him some dreadful news	M2
His dearest friend is burned to death You'll see	M2
The monstrous insect strike an attitude	S2
And shape himself into one capital I	T2
A rubric with red eyes You'll see him use	M2
The coffin for his pedestal hear him mouth	J
His 'I I I' instructing haggard grief	U2
Concerning his odd ego Does he chirp	V2
Of love it's 'I I I' Narcissus love	Q2
Myself Narcissus imaged in those eyes	M2
For all the love notes that he sounds are made	W2
After the fashion of passionate grasshoppers	M2
By grating one hind leg across another	F2
Nor does he learn to sound that mellower 'You '	P2
Until his bubble bursts and leaves him drowned	X2
An insect in a soap sud	X2
But there's another kind whose mind still moves	M2
In vital concord with the soul of things	M2
So that it thinks in music and its thoughts	M2
Pulse into natural song A separate voice	M2
And yet caught up by the surrounding choirs	M2
There in the harmonies of the Universe	M2
Losing himself he saves his soul alive	Y2
John I'm afraid	X2
Afraid of what Susannah	Z2
Afraid to put those Ducklings on to roast	X2
Your friend may miss his road and if he's late	X2
My little part of the music will be spoiled	X2
He won't Susannah Bad poets are always late	X2
Good poets at times delay a note or two	R
But all the great are punctual as the sun	A3
What's that He's early That's his knock I think	H2
The Lord have mercy John there's nothing ready	X2
Take him into your study and talk to him	B3
Talk hard He's come an hour before his time	C3
And I've to change my dress I'll into the kitchen	A3
	-
Then in a moment all the cottage rang	C2
With greetings hand grasped hand his Excellency	X2
Forgot the careful prologue he'd prepared	X2
And made an end of mystery He had brought	X2
A message from his wisdom loving king	O2
Who hearing of new menaces to the light	X2
In Europe urged the illustrious Kepler now	A2
To make his home in England There his thought	X2
And speech would both be free	X2
My friend said Wotton	A3
I have moved in those old strongholds of the night	X2
And heard strange mutterings It is not many years	M2
Since Bruno burned There's trouble brewing too	R
For one you know I think the Florentine	O
Who made that curious optic tube	D3
You mean	O
The man at Padua Galileo	E3
Yes	M2
They will not dare or need Proof or disproof	Y2
Rests with their eyes	M2
Kepler have you not heard	X2
Of those who fifteen hundred years ago	E3
Had eyes and would not see Eyes quickly close	M2
When souls prefer the dark	F3
So be it Other and younger eyes will see	X2
Perhaps that's why God gave the young a spice	M2
Of devilry They'll go look while elders gasp	G3
And when the Devil and Truth go hand in hand	X2
God help their enemies You will send my thanks	M2
My grateful thanks Sir Henry to your king	O2
To day I cannot answer you I must think	H2
It would be very difficult My wife	Y2
Would find it hard to leave her native land	X2
Say nothing yet before her	F2
Then to hide	X2
Their secret from Susannah Kepler poured	X2
His mind out and the world's dead branches bloomed	X2
For when he talked another spring began	H3
To which our May was winter and in the boughs	M2
Of his delicious thoughts like feathered choirs	M2
Bits of old rhyme scraps from the Sabine farm	I3
Celestial phrases from the Shepherd King	O2
And fluttering morsels from Catullus sang	C2
Much was fantastic All was touched with light	X2
That only genius knows to steal from heaven	A3
He spoke of poetry as the flowering time	C3
Of knowledge called it thought in passionate tune	J3
With those great rhythms that steer the moon and sun	A3
Thought in such concord with the soul of things	M2
That it can only move like tides and stars	M2
And man's own beating heart and the wings of birds	M2
In law whose service only sets them free	X2
Therefore it often leaps to the truth we seek	K3
Clasping it as a lover clasps his bride	X2
In darkness ere the sage can light his lamp	L3
And so in music men might find the road	X2
To truth at many a point where sages grope	M3
One day a greater Plato would arise	M2
To write a new philosophy he said	X2
Showing how music is the golden clue	R
To all the windings of the world's dark maze	M2
Himself had used it partly proved it too	R
In his own book the Harmonies of the World	X2
'All that the years discover points one way	N3
To this great ordered harmony he said	X2
Revealed on earth by music Planets move	Y2
In subtle accord like notes of one great song	O3
Audible only to the Artificer	X2
The Eternal Artist There's no grief no pain	N2
But music follow it simply as a clue	R
A microcosmic pattern of the whole	C
Can show you somewhere in its golden scheme	P3
The use of all such discords and at last	X2
Their exquisite solution Then darkness breaks	M2
Into diviner light love's agony climbs	M2
Through death to life and evil builds up heaven	A3
Have you not heard in some great symphony	X2
Those golden mathematics making clear	X2
The victory of the soul Have you not heard	X2
The very heavens opening	O2
Do those fools	M2
Who thought me an infidel then still smile at me	X2
For trying to read the stars in terms of song	O3
Discern their orbits measure their distances	M2
By musical proportions Let them smile	Q3
My folly at least revealed those three great laws	M2
Gave me the golden vases of the Egyptians	M2
To set in the great new temple of my God	X2
Beyond the bounds of Egypt	X2
They will forget	X2
My methods doubtless as the years go by	T2
And the world's wisdom shuts its music out	X2
The dust will gather on all my harmonies	M2
Or scholars turn my pages listlessly	X2
Glance at the musical phrases and pass on	E2
Not troubling even to read one Latin page	R3
Yet they'll accept those great results as mine	S3
I call them mine How can I help exulting	O2
Who climbed my ladder of music to the skies	M2
And found by accident let them call it so	E3
Or by the inspiration of that Power	X2
Which built His world of music those three laws	M2
First how the speed of planets round the sun	A3
Bears a proportion beautifully precise	M2
As music to their silver distances	M2
Next that although they seem to swerve aside	X2
From those plain circles of old Copernicus	M2
Their paths were not less rhythmical and exact	X2
But followed always that most exquisite curve	Y2
In its most perfect form the pure ellipse	M2
Third that although their speed from point to point	X2
Appeared to change their radii always moved	X2
Through equal fields of space in equal times	M2
Was this my infidelity was this	M2
Less full of beauty less divine in truth	T3
Than their dull chaos You the poet will know	E3
How as those dark perplexities grew clear	X2
And old anomalous discords changed to song	O3
My whole soul bowed and cried Almighty God	X2
These are Thy thoughts I am thinking after Thee	X2
I hope that Tycho knows I owed so much	U3
To Tycho Brahe for it was he who built	X2
The towers from which I hailed those three great laws	M2
How strange and far away it all seems now	A2
The thistles grow upon that little isle	Q3
Where Tycho's great Uraniborg once was	M2
Yet for a few sad years before it fell	R2
Into decay and ruin there was one	A3
Who crept about its crumbling corridors	M2
And lit the fire of memory on its hearth	V3
Wotton looked quickly up I think I have heard	X2
Something of that You mean poor Jeppe his dwarf	Y2
Fynes Moryson at the Mermaid Inn one night	X2
Showed a most curious manuscript a scrawl	W3
On yellow parchment crusted here and there	X2
With sea salt or the salt of those thick tears	M2
Creatures like Jeppe the crooked dwarf could weep	X3
It had been found clasped in a crooked hand	X2
Under the cliffs of Wheen a crooked hand	X2
That many a time had beckoned to passing ships	M2
Hoping to find some voyager who would take	Y3
A letter to its master	X2
The sailors laughed	X2
And jeered at him till Jeppe threw stones at them	Z3
And now Jeppe too was dead and one who knew	R
Fynes Moryson had found him and brought home	A4
That curious crooked scrawl Fynes Englished it	X2
Out of its barbarous Danish Thus it ran	H3
'Master have you forgotten Jeppe your dwarf	Y2
Who used to lie beside the big log fire	X2
And feed from your own hand The hall is dark	F3
There are no voices now only the wind	X2
And the sea gulls crying round Uraniborg	F3
I too am crying Master even I	T2
Because there is no fire upon the hearth	V3
No light in any window It is night	X2
And all the faces that I knew are gone	B4
	-
Master I watched you leaving us I saw	M2
The white sails dwindling into sea gull's wings	M2
Then melting into foam and all was dark	F3
I lay among the wild flowers on the cliff	Y2
And dug my nails into the stiff white chalk	F3
And called you Tycho Brahe You did not hear	X2
But gulls and jackdaws wheeling round my head	X2
Mocked me with Tycho Brahe and Tycho Brahe	C4
	-
You were a great magician Tycho Brahe	C4
And now that they have driven you away	N3
I that am only Jeppe the crooked dwarf	Y2
You used to laugh at for his matted hair	X2
And head too big and heavy take your pen	D4
Here in your study I will write it down	E4
And send it by a sailor to the King	F3
Of Scotland and who knows the mouse that gnawed	X2
The lion free may save you Tycho Brahe '	-
He is free now said Kepler had he lived	X2
He would have sent for Jeppe to join him there	X2
At Prague But death forestalled him and your King	F3
The years in which he watched that planet Mars	M2
His patient notes and records all were mine	S3
And mark you had he clipped or trimmed one fact	X2
By even a hair's breadth so that his results	M2
Made a pure circle of that planet's path	F4
It might have baffled us for an age and drowned	X2
All our new light in darkness But he held	X2
To what he saw He might so easily	X2
So comfortably have said 'My instruments	M2
Are crude and fallible In so fine a point	X2
Eyes may have erred too Why not acquiesce	M2
Why mar the tune why dislocate a world	X2
For one slight clash of seeming fact with faith '	-
But no though stars might swerve he held his course	M2
Recording only what his eyes could see	X2
Until death closed them	Z3
Then to his results	M2
I added mine and saw in one wild gleam	P3
Strange as the light of day to one born blind	X2
A subtler concord ruling them and heard	X2
Profounder tones of harmony resolve	Y2
Those broken melodies into song again	D4
Faintly and far away I too have seen	O
In music and in verse that golden clue	R
Whereof you speak said Wotton In all true song	F3
There is a hidden logic Even the rhyme	C3
That in bad poets wrings the neck of thought	X2
Is like a subtle calculus to the true	R
An instrument of discovery It reveals	M2
New harmonies new analogies It links	M2
Far things and near not in unnatural chains	M2
But in those true accords which still escape	G4
The plodding reason yet unify the world	X2
I caught some glimpses of this mystic power	X2
In verses of your own that elegy	X2
On Tycho and that great quatrain of yours	M2
I cannot quite recall the Latin words	M2
But made it roughly mine in words like these	M2
	-
'I know that I am dust and daily die	T2
Yet as I trace those rhythmic spheres at night	X2
I stand before the Thunderer's throne on high	T2
And feast on nectar in the halls of light '	-
	-
My version lacks the glory of your lines	M2
But	X2
Mine too was a version	A3
Kepler laughed	X2
Turned into Latin from old Ptolemy's Greek	F3
For even in verse half of the joy I think	F3
Is just to pass the torch from hand to hand	X2
An undimmed splendour But last night I tried	X2
Some music all my own I had a dream	P3
That I was wandering in some distant world	X2
I have often dreamed it Once it was the moon	J3
I wrote that down in prose When I am dead	X2
It may be printed This was a fairer dream	P3
For I was walking in a far off spring	F3
Upon the planet Venus Only verse	M2
Could spread true wings for that delicious world	X2
And so I wrote it for no eyes but mine	S3
Or 'twould be seized on doubtless as fresh proof	Y2
Of poor old Kepler's madness	M2
Let me hear	X2
Madman to madman for I too write verse	M2
Then Kepler in a rhythmic murmur breathed	X2
His rich enchanted memories of that dream	P3
	-
Beauty burned before me	X2
Swinging a lanthorn through that fragrant night	X2
I followed a distant singing	F3
And a dreaming light	X2
How she led me I cannot tell	R2
To that strange world afar	X2
Nor how I walked in that wild glen	D4
Upon the sunset star	X2
	-
Winged creatures floated	X2
Under those rose red boughs of violet bloom	H4
With delicate forms unknown on Earth	I4
'Twixt irised plume and plume	H4
Human hearted angel eyed	X2
And crowned with unknown flowers	M2
For nothing in that enchanted world	X2
Followed the way of ours	M2
	-
Only I saw that Beauty	X2
On Hesper as on earth still held command	X2
And though as one in slumber	X2
I roamed that radiant land	X2
With all these earth born senses sealed	X2
To what the Hesperians knew	R
The faithful lanthorn of her law	M2
Was mine on Hesper too	R
	-
Then half at home with wonder	X2
I saw strange flocks of flowers like birds take flight	X2
Great trees that burned like opals	M2
To lure their loves at night	X2
Dark beings that could move in realms	M2
No dream of ours has known	J4
Till these became as common things	M2
As men account their own	J4
	-
Yet when that lanthorn led me	X2
Back to the world where once I thought me wise	M2
I saw on this my planet	X2
What souls with awful eyes	M2
Hardly I dared to walk her fields	M2
As in that strange re birth	I4
I looked on those wild miracles	M2
The birds and flowers of earth	I4
	-
Silence a moment held them loth to break	F3
The spell of that strange dream	P3
One proof the more	X2
Said Wotton at last that songs can mount and fly	T2
To truth for this fantastic vision of yours	M2
Of life in other spheres awakes in me	X2
Either that slumbering knowledge of Socrates	M2
Or some strange premonition that the years	M2
Will prove it true This music leads us far	X2
From all our creeds except that faith in law	M2
Your quest for knowledge how it rests on that	X2
How sure the soul is that if truth destroy	X2
The temple in three days the truth will build	X2
A nobler temple and that order reigns	M2
In all things Even your atheist builds his doubt	X2
On that strange faith destroys his heaven and God	X2
In absolute faith that his own thought is true	R
To law God's lanthorn to our stumbling feet	X2
And so despite himself he worships God	X2
For where true souls are there are God and heaven	A3
	-
It is an ancient wisdom Long ago	F3
Said Kepler under the glittering Eastern sky	T2
The shepherd king looked up at those great stars	M2
Those ordered hosts and cried Caeli narrant	X2
Gloriam Dei	X2
Though there be some to day	X2
Who'd ape Lucretius and believe themselves	M2
Epicureans little they know of him	B3
Who even in utter darkness bowed his head	X2
To something nobler than the gods of Rome	A4
Reigning beyond the darkness	M2
They accept	X2
The law the music of these ordered worlds	M2
And straight deny the law's first postulate	X2
That out of nothingness nothing can be born	K4
Nor greater things from less Can music rise	M2
By chance from chaos as they said that star	X2
In Serpentarius rose I told them then	D4
That when I was a boy with time to spare	X2
I played at anagrams Out of my Latin name	L4
Johannes Keplerus came that sinister phrase	M2
Serpens in akuleo Struck by this	M2
I tried again but trusted it to chance	M2
I took some playing cards and wrote on each	M4
One letter of my name Then I began	H3
To shuffle them and at every shuffle I read	X2
The letters in their order as they came	L4
To see what meaning chance might give to them	Z3
Wotton the gods and goddesses must have laughed	X2
To see the weeks I lost in studying chance	M2
For had I scattered those cards into the black	F3
Epicurean eternity I'll swear	X2
They'd still be playing at leap frog in the dark	F3
And show no glimmer of sense And yet to hear	X2
Those wittols talk you'd think you'd but to mix	M2
A bushel of good Greek letters in a sack	F3
And shake them roundly for an age or so	F3
To pour the Odyssey out	X2
At last I told	X2
Those disputants what my wife had said One night	X2
When I was tired and all my mind a dust	X2
With pondering on their atoms I was called	X2
To supper and she placed before me there	X2
A most delicious salad 'It would appear '	-
I thought aloud 'that if these pewter dishes	M2
Green hearts of lettuce tarragon slips of thyme	C3
Slices of hard boiled egg and grains of salt	X2
With drops of water vinegar and oil	N4
Had in a bottomless gulf been flying about	X2
From all eternity one sure certain day	X2
The sweet invisible hand of Happy Chance	M2
Would serve them as a salad '	-
'Likely enough '	-
My wife replied 'but not so good as mine	S3
Nor so well dressed '	-
They laughed Susannah's voice	M2
Broke in I've made a better one The receipt	X2
Came from the Golden Lion I have dished	X2
Ducklings and peas and all Come John say grace	M2

Alfred Noyes

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