Newton Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: A BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTU VAWXYZA2 B2AC2OD2VE2ZRF2G2H2I 2J2RIK2L2M2WVN2VO2VP 2Q2ZVVWUR2ZS2VT2U2V2 GV VQ2VW2VX2Y2N2Z2A3VVB 3VVC3D3R A VE3F3G3VVC3H3VI3J3VK 3J3ZVW2I2L3VM3G3VO2N 3V2VN3X2O3V2E2P3Q3AV R3J3 A VJ3VVS3IZJ3VT3VVGP3V VX2VG J3U3V3VJ3J3VG3VJ3ZVV ZW3X3IVJ3Y3VVX2 J3J3W3VX2Z3H3 A4B4C4KX2WX2D4H3E4F4 AU3U3G4L3VU3VJ3H4J3B 3I4VG2VU3L3J4J3U3K4L 4VJ4U3VVM4VN4O4G3VG2 P4D2J3Q4VV2 U3R4S4VVVU3G3Q4V G3 T4D4P3X3VU3VG3U4U3VV VV4Z3VW2U3G3V4VV4VVW 4VV4V4JW2U3V V4VVV4G3U3VVV4 KVKV VJ3V G3VJ3V4 VJ3U3VVV4X4VV4V4VH4V VY4P2Z3V4Z4VV J3 G3J3VV4J3VVV4V4V4 V4VG2G3U3V4U3U3AVJ3J 3V4VV4VC3VVV4J3 A V4E2V4V4J3J3U4 V4V4G3J3H4U3G3GG3U3V U3VVU3K2C3V4V4VVJ3V4 J3 VR3V4V4U3 V4H4MV4G3V4V4V4U3V4V U3VVVV4VW4U3U3 G3J3J3VVD4O2AA4G3L3V U3V4U3G3VV4VU3V4L3C3 VV4J3J3VK2V4V4AVVV4J 3V4VV4 MMV4V4 VVK2K2 U3U3VV VVK4K4 C3C3V4V4 V4V4V4V4 E2VVVV VAV4G3J3 J3AV4F4 VV4C3U3VU3V4C3VJ3A4J 3VV4V4VVU3VV4V4L3V4V VP2VVV4AJ3V4 VAJJ3U3J3G2V4V4VVVVG VV U3J3VF4VJ3 V4VVV4U3VV4VV4VU3VVV V4V4K4VZ4K3V4U3U3JK4 VU3L3U3 V4VVJV4C4 VV4Z3VV4VV4V4V4GU3J3 VGV4 J3V4VJ3J3V4K2V4VV4WV U3U3U3V4VC3VJ3U3V4VU 3J3P2V4Z4V4VV V4GJ3GV4V4V4J3U3V4U3 J3V4U3J3GV V4 K4G AV VZ3J3C3J3J

I	A
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If I saw farther 'twas because I stood	B
On giant shoulders wrote the king of thought	C
Too proud of his great line to slight the toils	D
Of his forebears He turned to their dim past	E
Their fading victories and their fond defeats	F
And knelt as at an altar drawing all	G
Their strengths into his own and so went forth	H
With all their glory shining in his face	I
To win new victories for the age to come	J
So where Copernicus had destroyed the dream	K
We called our world where Galileo watched	L
Those ancient firmaments melt a thin blue smoke	M
Into a vaster night where Kepler heard	N
Only stray fragments isolated chords	O
Of that tremendous music which should bind	P
All things anew in one Newton arose	Q
And carried on their fire	R
Around him reeled	S
Through lingering fumes of hate and clouds of doubt	T
Lit by the afterglow of the Civil War	U
The dissolute throngs of that Walpurgis night	V
Where all the cynical spirits that deny	A
Danced with the vicious lusts that drown the soul	W
In flesh too gross for Circe or her swine	X
But in his heart he heard one instant voice	Y
On with the torch once more make all things new	Z
Build the new heaven and earth and save the world	A2
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Ah but the infinite patience the long months	B2
Lavished on tasks that to the common eye	A
Were insignificant never to be crowned	C2
With great results or even with earth's rewards	O
Could Rembrandt but have painted him in those hours	D2
Making his first analysis of light	V
Alone there in his darkened Cambridge room	E2
At Trinity Could he have painted too	Z
The secret glow the mystery and the power	R
The sense of all the thoughts and unseen spires	F2
That soared to heaven around him	G2
He stood there	H2
Obscure unknown the shadow of a man	I2
In darkness like a grey dishevelled ghost	J2
Bare throated down at heel his last night's supper	R
Littering his desk untouched his glimmering face	I
Under his tangled hair intent and still	K2
Preparing our new universe	L2
He caught	M2
The sunbeam striking through that bullet hole	W
In his closed shutter a round white spot of light	V
Upon a small dark screen	N2
He interposed	V
A prism of glass He saw the sunbeam break	O2
And spread upon the screen its rainbow band	V
Of disentangled colours all in scale	P2
Like notes in music first the violet ray	Q2
Then indigo trembling softly into blue	Z
Then green and yellow quivering side by side	V
Then orange mellowing richly into red	V
Then in the screen he made a small round hole	W
Like to the first and through it passed once more	U
Each separate coloured ray He let it strike	R2
Another prism of glass and saw each hue	Z
Bent at a different angle from its path	S2
The red the least the violet ray the most	V
But all in scale and order all precise	T2
As notes in music Last he took a lens	U2
And passing through it all those coloured rays	V2
Drew them together again remerging all	G
On that dark screen in one white spot of light	V
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So watching testing proving he resolved	V
The seeming random glories of our day	Q2
Into a constant harmony and found	V
How in the whiteness of the sunlight sleep	W2
Compounded all the colours of the world	V
He saw how raindrops in the clouds of heaven	X2
Breaking the light revealed that sevenfold arch	Y2
Of colours ranged as on his own dark screen	N2
Though now they spanned the mountains and wild seas	Z2
Then where that old world order had gone down	A3
Beneath a darker deluge he beheld	V
Gleams of the great new order and recalled	V
Fraught with new meaning and a deeper hope	B3
That covenant which God made with all mankind	V
Throughout all generations I will set	V
My bow in the cloud that henceforth ye may know	C3
How deeper than the wreckage of your dreams	D3
Abides My law in beauty and in power	R
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II	A
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Yet for that exquisite balance of the mind	V
He too must pay the price He stood alone	E3
Bewildered at the sudden assault of fools	F3
On this his first discovery	G3
I have lost	V
The most substantial blessing of my quiet	V
To follow a vain shadow	C3
I would fain	H3
Attempt no more So few can understand	V
Or read one thought So many are ready at once	I3
To swoop and sting Indeed I would withdraw	J3
For ever from philosophy So he wrote	V
In grief the mightiest mind of that new age	K3
Let those who'd stone the Roman Curia	J3
For all the griefs that Galileo knew	Z
Remember the dark hours that well nigh quenched	V
The splendour of that spirit He could not sleep	W2
Yet with that patience of the God in man	I2
That still must seek the Splendour whence it came	L3
Through midnight hours of mockery and defeat	V
In loneliness and hopelessness and tears	M3
He laboured on He had no power to see	G3
How after many years when he was dead	V
Out of this new discovery men should make	O2
An instrument to explore the farthest stars	N3
And delicately dividing their white rays	V2
Divine what metals in their beauty burned	V
Extort red secrets from the heart of Mars	N3
Or measure the molten iron in the sun	X2
He bent himself to nearer lowlier tasks	O3
And seeing first that those deflected rays	V2
Though it were only by the faintest bloom	E2
Of colour imperceptible to our eyes	P3
Must dim the vision of Galileo's glass	Q3
He made his own new weapon of the sky	A
That first reflecting telescope which should hold	V
In its deep mirror as in a breathless pool	R3
The undistorted image of a star	J3
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III	A
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In that deep night where Galileo groped	V
Like a blind giant in dreams to find what power	J3
Held moons and planets to their constant road	V
Through vastness ordered like a moving fleet	V
What law so married them that they could not clash	S3
Or sunder but still kept their rhythmic pace	I
As if those ancient tales indeed were true	Z
And some great angel helmed each gliding sphere	J3
Many had sought an answer Many had caught	V
Gleams of the truth and yet as when a torch	T3
Is waved above a multitude at night	V
And shows wild streams of faces all confused	V
But not the single law that knits them all	G
Into an ordered nation so our skies	P3
For all those fragmentary glimpses whirled	V
In chaos till one eagle spirit soared	V
Found the one law that bound them all in one	X2
And through that awful unity upraised	V
The soul to That which made and guides them all	G
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Did Newton dreaming in his orchard there	J3
Beside the dreaming Witham see the moon	U3
Burn like a huge gold apple in the boughs	V3
And wonder why should moons not fall like fruit	V
Or did he see as those old tales declare	J3
Those fairy tales that gather form and fire	J3
Till in one jewel they pack the whole bright world	V
A ripe fruit fall from some immortal tree	G3
Of knowledge while he wondered at what height	V
Would this earth magnet lose its darkling power	J3
Would not the fruit fall earthward though it grew	Z
High o'er the hills as yonder brightening cloud	V
Would not the selfsame power that plucked the fruit	V
Draw the white moon then sailing in the blue	Z
Then in one flash as light and song are born	W3
And the soul wakes he saw it this dark earth	X3
Holding the moon that else would fly through space	I
To her sure orbit as a stone is held	V
In a whirled sling and by the selfsame power	J3
Her sister planets guiding all their moons	Y3
While exquisitely balanced and controlled	V
In one vast system moons and planets wheeled	V
Around one sovran majesty the sun	X2
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IV	-
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Light and more light The spark from heaven was there	J3
The flash of that reintegrating fire	J3
Flung from heaven's altars where all light is born	W3
To feed the imagination of mankind	V
With vision and reveal all worlds in one	X2
But let no dreamer dream that his great work	Z3
Sprang armed like Pallas from the Thunderer's brain	H3
With infinite patience he must test and prove	-
His vision now in those clear courts of Truth	A4
Whose absolute laws bemocked by shallower minds	B4
As less than dreams less than the faithless faith	C4
That fears the Truth lest Truth should slay the dream	K
Are man's one guide to his transcendent heaven	X2
For there's no wandering splendour in the soul	W
But in the highest heaven of all is one	X2
With absolute reality None can climb	D4
Back to that Fount of Beauty but through pain	H3
Long long he toiled comparing first the curves	E4
Traced by the cannon ball as it soared and fell	F4
With that great curving road across the sky	A
Traced by the sailing moon	U3
Was earth a loadstone	U3
Holding them to their paths by that dark force	G4
Whose mystery men have cloaked beneath a name	L3
Yet when he came to test and prove he found	V
That all the great deflections of the moon	U3
Her shining cadences from the path direct	V
Were utterly inharmonious with the law	J3
Of that dark force at such a distance acting	H4
Measured from earth's own centre	J3
For three long years Newton withheld his hope	B3
Until that day when light was brought from France	I4
New light new hope in one small glistening fact	V
Clear cut as any diamond and to him	G2
Loaded with all significance like the point	V
Of light that shows where constellations burn	U3
Picard in France all glory to her name	L3
Who is herself a light among all lands	J4
Had measured earth's diameter once more	J3
With exquisite precision	U3
To the throng	K4
Those few corrected ciphers his results	L4
Were less than nothing yet they changed the world	V
For Newton seized them and with trembling hands	J4
Began to work his problem out anew	U3
Then then as on the page those figures turned	V
To hieroglyphs of heaven and he beheld	V
The moving moon with awful cadences	M4
Falling into the path his law ordained	V
Even to the foot and second his hand shook	N4
And dropped the pencil	O4
Work it out for me	G3
He cried to those around him for the weight	V
Of that celestial music overwhelmed him	G2
And on his page those burning hieroglyphs	P4
Were Thrones and Principalities and Powers	D2
For far beyond immeasurably far	J3
Beyond our sun he saw that river of suns	Q4
We call the Milky Way that glittering host	V
Powdering the night each grain of solar blaze	V2
Divided from its neighbour by a gulf	-
Too wide for thought to measure each a sun	U3
Huger than ours with its own fleet of worlds	R4
Visible and invisible Those bright throngs	S4
That seemed dispersed like a defeated host	V
Through blindly wandering skies now at the word	V
Of one great dreamer height o'er height revealed	V
Hints of a vaster order and moved on	U3
In boundless intricacies of harmony	G3
Around one centre deeper than all suns	Q4
The burning throne of God	V
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V	G3
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He could not sleep That intellect whose wings	T4
Dared the cold ultimate heights of Space and Time	D4
Sank like a wounded eagle with dazed eyes	P3
Back headlong through the clouds to throb on earth	X3
What shaft had pierced him That which also pierced	V
His great forebears the hate of little men	U3
They flocked around him and they flung their dust	V
Into the sensitive eyes and laughed to see	G3
How dust could blind them	U4
If one prickling grain	U3
Could so put out his vision and so torment	V
That delicate brain what weakness How the mind	V
That seemed to dwarf us dwindles Is he mad	V
So buzzed the fools whose ponderous mental wheels	V4
Nor dust nor grit nor stones nor rocks could irk	Z3
Even for an instant	V
Newton could not sleep	W2
But all that careful malice could design	U3
Was blindly fostered by well meaning folly	G3
And great sane folk like Mr Samuel Pepys	V4
Canvassed his weakness and slept sound all night	V
For little Samuel with his rosy face	V4
Came chirping into a coffee house one day	V
Like a plump robin Sir the unhappy state	V
Of Mr Isaac Newton grieves me much	W4
Last week I had a letter from him filled	V
With strange complainings very curious hints	V4
Such as I grieve to say are common signs	V4
I have observed it often of worse to come	J
He said that he could neither eat nor sleep	W2
Because of all the embroilments he was in	U3
Hinting at nameless enemies Then he begged	V
My pardon very strangely I believe	-
Physicians would confirm me in my fears	V4
'Tis very sad Only last night I found	V
Among my papers certain lines composed	V
By whom d'you think My lord of Halifax	V4
Or so dear Mrs Porterhouse assured me	G3
Expressing sir the uttermost satisfaction	U3
In Mr Newton's talent Sir he wrote	V
Answering the charge that science would put out	V
The light of beauty these very handsome lines	V4
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'When Newton walked by Witham stream	K
There fell no chilling shade	V
To blight the drifting naiad's dream	K
Or make her garland fade	V
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The mist of sun was not less bright	V
That crowned Urania's hair	J3
He robbed it of its colder light	V
But left the rainbow there '	-
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They are very neat and handsome you'll agree	G3
Solid in sense as Dryden at his best	V
And smooth as Waller but with something more	J3
That touch of grace that airier elegance	V4
Which only rank can give	-
'Tis very sad	V
That one so nobly praised should well no matter	J3
I am told sir that these troubles all began	U3
At Cambridge when his manuscripts were burned	V
He had been working in his curious way	V
All through the night and in the morning greyness	V4
Went down to chapel leaving on his desk	X4
A lighted candle You can imagine it	V
A sadly sloven altar to his Muse	V4
Littered with papers cups and greasy plates	V4
Of untouched food I am told that he would eat	V
His Monday's breakfast sir on Tuesday morning	H4
Such was his absent way	V
When he returned	V
He found that Diamond his little dog	Y4
Named Diamond for a black patch near his tail	P2
Had overturned the candle All his work	Z3
Was burned to ashes	V4
It struck him to the quick	Z4
Though when his terrier fawned about his feet	V
He showed no anger He was heard to say	V
'O Diamond Diamond little do you know '	-
But from that hour ah well we'll say no more	J3
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Halley was there that day and spoke up sharply	G3
Sir there are hints and hints Do you mean more	J3
I do sir chirruped Samuel mightily pleased	V
To find all eyes for once on his fat face	V4
I fear his intellects are disordered sir	J3
Good That's an answer I can deal with that	V
But tell me first quoth Halley why he wrote	V
That letter a week ago to Mr Pepys	V4
Why sir piped Samuel innocent of the trap
I had an argument in this coffee house	V4
Last week with certain gentlemen on the laws	V4
Of chance and what fair hopes a man might have	-
Of throwing six at dice I happened to say	V4
That Mr Isaac Newton was my friend	V
And promised I would sound him	G2
Sir said Halley	G3
You'll pardon me but I forgot to tell you	U3
I heard a minute since outside these doors	V4
A very modish woman of the town	U3
Or else a most delicious lady of fashion	U3
A melting creature with a bold black eye	A
A bosom like twin doves and sir a mouth
Like a Turk's dream of Paradise She cooed	V
'Is Mr Pepys within ' I greatly fear	J3
That they denied you to her	J3
Off ran Pepys	V4
A hint's a hint laughed Halley and so to bed	V
But as for Isaac Newton let me say	V4
Whatever his embroilments were he solved	V
With just one hour of thought not long ago	C3
The problem set by Leibnitz as a challenge
To all of Europe He published his result	V
Anonymously but Leibnitz when he saw it	V
Cried out at once old enemy as he was	V4
'That's Newton none but Newton From this claw	J3
I know the old lion in his midnight lair '	-
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VI	A
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Sir Isaac Newton writes to Mrs Vincent at Woolthorpe
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Your letter on my eightieth birthday wakes	V4
Memories like violets in this London gloom	E2
You have never failed for more than three score years	V4
To send these annual greetings from the haunts	V4
Where you and I were boy and girl together	J3
A day must come it cannot now be far	J3
When I shall have no power to thank you for them	U4
So let me tell you now that all my life	-
They have come to me with healing in their wings	V4
Like birds from home birds from the happy woods	V4
Above the Witham where you walked with me	G3
When you and I were young
Do you remember	J3
Old Barley how he tried to teach us drawing	H4
He found some promise I believe in you	U3
But quite despaired of me	G3
I treasure all	G
Those little sketches that you sent to me	G3
Each Christmas carrying each some glimpse of home
There's one I love that shows the narrow lane	U3
Behind the schoolhouse where I had that bout	V
Of schoolboy fisticuffs I have never known	U3
More pleasure I believe than when I beat	V
That black haired bully and won for my reward	V
Those April smiles from you	U3
I see you still	K2
Standing among the fox gloves in the hedge
And just behind you in the field I know	C3
There was a patch of aromatic flowers	V4
Rest harrow was it Yes their tangled roots	V4
Pluck at the harrow halt the sharp harrow of thought	V
Even in old age I never breathe their scent	V
But I am back in boyhood dreaming there	J3
Over some book among the diligent bees	V4
Until you join me and we dream together	J3
They called me lazy then Oddly enough	-
It was that fight that stirred my mind to beat	V
My bully at his books and head the school	R3
Blind rivalry at first By such fond tricks	V4
The invisible Power that shapes us not ourselves	V4
Punishes teaches leads us gently on	U3
Like children all our lives until we grasp
A sudden meaning and are born through death
Into full knowledge that our Guide was Love	-
Another picture shows those woods of ours	V4
Around whose warm dark edges in the spring	H4
Primroses knots of living sunlight woke	M
And always you their radiant shepherdess	V4
From Elfland lead them rambling back for me	G3
The dew still clinging to their golden fleece	V4
Through these grey memory mists	V4
Another shows	V4
My old sun dial You say that it is known	U3
As Isaac's dial still I took great pains	V4
To set it rightly If it has not shifted	V
'Twill mark the time long after I am gone	U3
Not like those curious water clocks I made	V
Do you remember They worked well at first	V
But the least particles in the water clogged	V
The holes through which it dripped and so one day	V4
We two came home so late that we were sent	V
Supperless to our beds and suffered much	W4
From the world's harshness as we thought it then	U3
Would God that we might taste that harshness now	U3
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I cannot send you what you've sent to me	G3
And so I wish you'll never thank me more	J3
For those poor gifts I have sent from year to year	J3
I send another and hope that you can use it	V
To buy yourself those comforts which you need	V
This Christmas time	D4
How strange it is to wake	O2
And find that half a century has gone by	A
With all our endless youth	A4
They talk to me	G3
Of my discoveries prate of undying fame	L3
Too late to help me Anything I achieved	V
Was done through work and patience and the men	U3
Who sought quick roads to glory for themselves	V4
Were capable of neither So I won	U3
Their hatred and it often hampered me	G3
Because it vexed my mind	V
This world of ours	V4
Would give me all now I have ceased to want it	V
For I sit here alone a sad old man	U3
Sipping his orange water nodding to sleep
Not caring any more for aught they say	V4
Not caring any more for praise or blame	L3
But dreaming things we dreamed of long ago	C3
In childhood	V
You and I had laughed away	V4
That boy and girl affair We were too poor	J3
For anything but laughter	J3
I am old	V
And you twice wedded and twice widowed still	K2
Retain through all your nearer joys and griefs	V4
The old affection Vaguely our blind old hands	V4
Grope for each other in this growing dark
And deepening loneliness to say good bye	A
Would that my words could tell you all my heart	V
But even my words grow old	V
Perhaps these lines	V4
Written not long ago may tell you more	J3
I have no skill in verse despite the praise	V4
Your kindness gave me once but since I wrote	V
Thinking of you among the woods of home
My heart was in them Let them turn to yours	V4
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Give me for friends my own true folk	M
Who kept the very word they spoke	M
Whose quiet prayers from day to day	V4
Have brought the heavens about my way	V4
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Not those whose intellectual pride	V
Would quench the only lights that guide	V
Confuse the lines 'twixt good and ill	K2
Then throne their own capricious will	K2
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Not those whose eyes in mockery scan	U3
The simpler hopes and dreams of man	U3
Not those keen wits so quick to hurt	V
So swift to trip you in the dirt	V
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Not those who'd pluck your mystery out	V
Yet never saw your last redoubt	V
Whose cleverness would kill the song	K4
Dead at your heart then prove you wrong	K4
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Give me those eyes I used to know	C3
Where thoughts like angels come and go	C3
Not glittering eyes nor dimmed by books	V4
But eyes through which the deep soul looks	V4
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Give me the quiet hands and face	V4
That never strove for fame and place	V4
The soul whose love so many a day	V4
Has brought the heavens about my way	V4
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VII	-
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Was it a dream that low dim lighted room	E2
With that dark periwigged phantom of Dean Swift	V
Writing beside a fire to one he loved	V
Beautiful Catherine Barton once the light	V
Of Newton's house and his half sister's child	V
Yes Catherine Barton I am brave enough	-
To face this pale unhappy wistful ghost	V
Of our departed friendship
It was I	A
Savage and mad a snarling kennel of sins	V4
Your Holiness as you called me with that smile
Which even your ghost would quietly turn on me	G3
Who raised it up It has no terrors dear	J3
And I shall never lay it while I live	-
You write to me You think I have the power	J3
To shield the fame of Newton from a lie	A
Poor little ghost You think I hold the keys	V4
Not only of Parnassus then but hell	F4
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There is a tale abroad that Newton owed	V
His public office to Lord Halifax	V4
Your secret lover Coarseness as you know	C3
Is my peculiar privilege I'll be plain	U3
And let them wince who are whispering in the dark
They are hinting that he gained his public post	V
Through you his flesh and blood and that he knew	U3
You were his patron's mistress	V4
Yes I know	C3
The coffee house that hatched it to be scotched	V
Nay killed before one snuff box could say snap
Had not one cold malevolent face been there	J3
Listening that crystal minded lover of truth	A4
That lucid enemy of all lies Voltaire	J3
I am told he is doing much to spread the light	V
Of Newton's great discoveries there in France	V4
There's little fear that France whose clear keen eyes	V4
Have missed no morning in the realm of thought	V
Would fail to see it and smaller need to lift	V
A brand from hell to illume the light from heaven	U3
You fear he'll print his lie No doubt of that	V
I can foresee the phrase as Halley saw	V4
The advent of his comet jolie niece	V4
Assez amiable then he'll give your name	L3
As Madame Conduit adding just that spice	V4
Of infidelity that the dates admit	V
To none but these truth lovers It will be best	V
Not to enlighten him or he'll change his tale	P2
And make an answer difficult Let him print	V
This truth as he conceives it and you'll need	V
No more defence	V4
All history then shall damn his death cold lie	A
And show you for the laughing child you were	J3
When Newton won his office	V4
For yourself	-
You say you have no fear Your only thought	V
Is that they'll soil his fame Ah yes they'll try	A
But they'll not hurt it For all time to come	J
It stands there firm as marble and as pure	J3
They can do nothing that the sun and rain	U3
Will not erase at last Not even Voltaire	J3
Can hurt that noble memory Think of him	G2
As of a viper writhing at the base	V4
Of some great statue Let the venomous tongue
Flicker against that marble as it may	V4
It cannot wound it	V
I am far more grieved	V
For you who sit there wondering now too late	V
If it were some suspicion some dark hint	V
Newton had heard that robbed him of his sleep
And almost broke his mind up I recall	G
How the town buzzed that Newton had gone mad	V
You copy me that sad letter which he wrote	V
To Locke wherein he begs him to forgive	-
The hard words he had spoken thinking Locke
Had tried to embroil him as he says with women	U3
A piteous humble letter	J3
Had he heard	V
Some hint of scandal that he could not breathe
To you because he honoured you too well	F4
I cannot tell His mind was greatly troubled	V
With other things At least you need not fear	J3
That Newton thought it true He walked aloof	-
Treading a deeper stranger world than ours	V4
Have you not told me how he would forget	V
Even to eat and drink when he was wrapt	V
In those miraculous new discoveries	V4
And under this wild maze of shadow and sun	U3
Beheld though not the Master Player's hand	V
The keys from which His organ music rolls	V4
Those visible symphonies of wild cloud and light	V
Which clothe the invisible world for mortal eyes	V4
I have heard that Leibnitz whispered to the court	V
That Newton was an atheist Leibnitz knew	U3
His audience He could stoop to it	V
Fools have said	V
That knowledge drives out wonder from the world	V
They'll say it still though all the dust's ablaze	V4
With miracles at their feet while Newton's laws	V4
Foretell that knowledge one day shall be song	K4
And those whom Truth has taken to her heart	V
Find that it beats in music	Z4
Even this age	K3
Has glimmerings of it Newton never saw	V4
His own full victory but at least he knew	U3
That all the world was linked in one again	U3
And if men found new worlds in years to come	J
These too must join the universal song	K4
That's why true poets love him and you'll find	V
Their love will cancel all that hate can do	U3
They are the sentinels of the House of Fame	L3
And that quick challenging couplet from the pen	U3
Of Alexander Pope is answer enough	-
To all those whisperers round the outer doors	V4
There's Addison too The very spirit and thought	V
Of Newton moved to music when he wrote	V
The Spacious Firmament Some keen eyed age to come	J
Will say though Newton seldom wrote a verse	V4
That music was his own and speaks his faith	C4
	-
And last for those who doubt his faith in God	V
And man's immortal destiny there remains	V4
The granite monument of his own great work	Z3
That dark cathedral of man's intellect	V
The vast Principia pointing to the skies	V4
Wherein our intellectual king proclaimed	V
The task of science through this wilderness	V4
Of Time and Space and false appearances	V4
To make the path straight from effect to cause	V4
Until we come to that First Cause of all	G
The Power above beyond the blind machine	U3
The Primal Power the originating Power	J3
Which cannot be mechanical He affirmed it	V
With absolute certainty Whence arises all	G
This order this unbroken chain of law	V4
This human will this death defying love	-
Whence but from some divine transcendent Power	J3
Not less but infinitely more than these	V4
Because it is their Fountain and their Guide	V
Fools in their hearts have said Whence comes this Power	J3
Why throw the riddle back this one stage more	J3
And Newton from a height above all worlds	V4
Answered and answers still	K2
This universe	V4
Exists and by that one impossible fact	V
Declares itself a miracle postulates	V4
An infinite Power within itself a Whole	W
Greater than any part a Unity	V
Sustaining all binding all worlds in one	U3
This is the mystery palpable here and now	U3
'Tis not the lack of links within the chain	U3
From cause to cause but that the chain exists	V4
That's the unfathomable mystery	V
The one unquestioned miracle that we know	C3
Implying every attribute of God	V
The ultimate absolute omnipresent Power	J3
In its own being deep and high as heaven	U3
But men still trace the greater to the less	V4
Account for soul with flesh and dreams with dust	V
Forgetting in their manifold world the One	U3
In whom for every splendour shining here	J3
Abides an equal power behind the veil	P2
Was the eye contrived by blindly moving atoms	V4
Or the still listening ear fulfilled with music	Z4
By forces without knowledge of sweet sounds	V4
Are nerves and brain so sensitively fashioned	V
That they convey these pictures of the world	V
Into the very substance of our life	-
While That from which we came the Power that made us	V4
Is drowned in blank unconsciousness of all	G
Does it not from the things we know appear	J3
That there exists a Being incorporeal	G
Living intelligent who in infinite space	V4
As in His infinite sensory perceives	V4
Things in themselves by His immediate presence	V4
Everywhere Of which things we see no more	J3
Than images only flashed through nerves and brain	U3
To our small sensories	V4
What is all science then	U3
But pure religion seeking everywhere	J3
The true commandments and through many forms	V4
The eternal power that binds all worlds in one	U3
It is man's age long struggle to draw near	J3
His Maker learn His thoughts discern His law	G
A boundless task in whose infinitude	V
As in the unfolding light and law of love	-
Abides our hope and our eternal joy
I know not how my work may seem to others	V4
So wrote our mightiest mind But to myself	-
I seem a child that wandering all day long	K4
Upon the sea shore gathers here a shell	G
And there a pebble coloured by the wave	-
While the great ocean of truth from sky to sky	A
Stretches before him boundless unexplored	V
	-
He has explored it now and needs of me	V
Neither defence nor tribute His own work	Z3
Remains his monument He rose at last so near	J3
The Power divine that none can nearer go	C3
None in this age To carry on his fire	J3
We must await a mightier age to come	J

Alfred Noyes

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