Tycho Brake Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: A BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQ RSTUBVWXYZNA2B2C2D2E 2F2G2A2BH2MI2J2MK2L2 SM2N2WL2SO2P2Q2AR2S2 T2NU2V2W2X2Y2SZ2QA3S B3SC3D3E3F3YSG3BH3SI 3J3MK3L3M3N3QQHO3M AP3SNW2Q3JQP3R3SWQS3 T3U3H2V3AA2SV3FW3QX3 SY3Z3S3W2W3C A4ZB4C4D4QX3QSE4F4QQ G4H4I4J4QK4SB4Q2L4QQ QYQQS B4M4QAI4N4A2B3QN4O4S DSL2LI4QL2P4Q4QU2B4R 4PNQX3Q A V2S2QN4XBY2W3S4QQQQN 3T4U4HQR3QSV4W4X4QNY 4X3Z4ML2SS PH2S2X4L2AQSY4F3NQSP A B3QX3QYQ4L2FNN4SW4H2 O3 BB3W2O3QQSSSJ4QSB4SQ Q4QQQQ SQSB4QQ2QQSB SI4QFQNF3X3A2SY3 SQQNQS L2NA2NSSA2NSNL2QL2SS QNQQSNNQNQSR4QA2NNNQ QQNO4QS QQW2MNSQYSNNL2MQNBBO 4QQS Q BQSQY4 NQQQSNQQ NMQSNQF3NSQSSQQBQL4Q 4QQQBQSQNNQQQ QQQQSQQQNQBQQQQQS N BQNSQNQSQNSQ2NNNSNSN SY4QSQMBQSQSNMQNS NQQQQSNSNQQSF3SF3 NNNSNN NNNMSMS NNQQNNNQQBQQQ2NSQQSN QSQQSN Q QQSS SSL4L4 QQQQS SQ4Q4SS BQQBQQ4BQ4Q4Q4QSNSSB NQNSSQNNQQSQQQQSSNQQ 4QQQQNNNQ4Q4 SQSNQ SQ4SBNQNSNQSO4NBNSNQ F3Q4SQS NNQNQNSQS QSNQ4SNQ4SSMBSNSSSSS F3 SSQSNSSNSQQSNNSQ4QBQ SSF3NQSQQNNQQSSQQSQS BQS QQSSSSQSQSQSNQ4NSSSB NSMSSSSSNY4SMSSSQSQM QSNSQSSBQ4 SSSSSNBNSQ4NNSQQSQN Q BQQQ4NQNMQQN SSSSSF3SSF3SQ4NQSSQQ 4NQ4SSNSBQ4NQNSSSSSQ Q4QQBNSSY4SS

I	A
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They thought him a magician Tycho Brahe	B
Who lived on that strange island in the Sound	C
Nine miles from Elsinore	D
His legend reached	E
The Mermaid Inn the year that Shakespeare died	F
Fynes Moryson had brought his travellers' tales	G
Of Wheen the heart shaped isle where Tycho made	H
His great discoveries and with Jeppe his dwarf	I
And flaxen haired Christine the peasant girl	J
Dreamed his great dreams for five and twenty years	K
For there he lit that lanthorn of the law	L
Uraniborg that fortress of the truth	M
With Pegasus flying above its loftiest tower	N
While in its roofs like wide enchanted eyes	O
Watching the brightest windows in the world	P
Opened upon the stars	Q
	-
Nine miles from Elsinore with all those ghosts	R
There's magic enough in that But white cliffed Wheen	S
Six miles in girth with crowds of hunchback waves	T
Crawling all round it and those moonstruck windows	U
Held its own magic too for Tycho Brahe	B
By his mysterious alchemy of dreams	V
Had so enriched the soil that when the king	W
Of England wished to buy it Denmark asked	X
A price too great for any king on earth	Y
Give us they said in scarlet cardinal's cloth	Z
Enough to cover it and at every corner	N
Of every piece a right rose noble too	A2
Then all that kings can buy of Wheen is yours	B2
Only said they a merchant bought it once	C2
And when he came to claim it goblins flocked	D2
All round him from its forty goblin farms	E2
And mocked him bidding him take away the stones	F2
That he had bought for nothing else was his	G2
These things were fables They were also true	A2
They thought him a magician Tycho Brahe	B
The astrologer who wore the mask of gold	H2
Perhaps he was There's magic in the truth	M
And only those who find and follow its laws	I2
Can work its miracles	J2
Tycho sought the truth	M
From that strange year in boyhood when he heard	K2
The great eclipse foretold and on the day	L2
Appointed at the very minute even	S
Beheld the weirdly punctual shadow creep	M2
Across the sun bewildering all the birds	N2
With thoughts of evening	W
Picture him on that day	L2
The boy at Copenhagen with his mane	S
Of thick red hair thrusting his freckled face	O2
Out of his upper window holding the piece	P2
Of glass he blackened above his candle flame	Q2
To watch that orange ember in the sky	A
Wane into smouldering ash	R2
He whispered there	S2
So it is true By searching in the heavens	T2
Men can foretell the future	N
In the street	U2
Below him throngs were babbling of the plague	V2
That might or might not follow	W2
He resolved	X2
To make himself the master of that deep art	Y2
And know what might be known	S
He bought the books	Z2
Of Stadius with his tables of the stars	Q
Night after night among the gabled roofs	A3
Climbing and creeping through a world unknown	S
Save to the roosting stork he learned to find	B3
The constellations Cassiopeia's throne	S
The Plough still pointing to the Polar Star	C3
The sword belt of Orion There he watched	D3
The movements of the planets hours on hours	E3
And wondered at the mystery of it all	F3
All this he did in secret for his birth	Y
Was noble and such wonderings were a sign	S
Of low estate when Tycho Brahe was young	G3
And all his kinsmen hoped that Tycho Brahe	B
Would live serene as they among his dogs	H3
And horses or if honour must be won	S
Let the superfluous glory flow from fields	I3
Where blood might still be shed or from those courts	J3
Where statesmen lie But Tycho sought the truth	M
So when they sent him in his tutor's charge	K3
To Leipzig for such studies as they held	L3
More worthy of his princely blood he searched	M3
The Almagest and while his tutor slept	N3
Measured the delicate angles of the stars	Q
Out of his window with his compasses	Q
His only instrument Even with this rude aid	H
He found so many an ancient record wrong	O3
That more and more he burned to find the truth	M
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One night at home as Tycho searched the sky	A
Out of his window compasses in hand	P3
Fixing one point upon a planet one	S
Upon some loftier star a ripple of laughter	N
Startled him from the garden walk below	W2
He lowered his compass peered into the dark	Q3
And saw Christine the blue eyed peasant girl	J
With bare brown feet standing among the flowers	Q
She held what seemed an apple in her hand	P3
And in a voice that Aprilled all his blood	R3
The low soft voice of earth drawing him down	S
From those cold heights to that warm breast of Spring	W
A natural voice that had not learned to use	Q
The false tones of the world simple and clear	S3
As a bird's voice out of the fragrant darkness called	T3
I saw it falling from your window ledge	U3
I thought it was an apple till it rolled	H2
Over my foot	V3
It's heavy Shall I try	A
To throw it back to you	A2
Tycho saw a stain	S
Of purple across one small arched glistening foot	V3
Your foot Is bruised he cried	F
O no she laughed	W3
And plucked the stain off Only a petal see	Q
She showed it to him	X3
But this I wonder now	S
If I can throw it	Y3
Twice she tried and failed	Z3
Or Tycho failed to catch that slippery sphere	S3
He saw the supple body swaying below	W2
The ripe red lips that parted as she laughed	W3
And those deep eyes where all the stars were drowned	C
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At the third time he caught it and she vanished	A4
Waving her hand a little floating moth	Z
Between the pine trees into the warm dark night	B4
He turned into his room and quickly thrust	C4
Under his pillow that forbidden fruit	D4
For the door opened and the hot red face	Q
Of Otto Brahe his father glowered at him	X3
What's this What's this	Q
The furious eyed old man	S
Limped to the bedside pulled the mystery out	E4
And stared upon the strangest apple of Eve	F4
That ever troubled Eden heavy as bronze	Q
And delicately enchased with silver stars	Q
The small celestial globe that Tycho bought	G4
In Leipzig	H4
Then the storm burst on his head	I4
This moon struck 'pothecary's prentice work	J4
These cheap jack calendar maker's gypsy tricks	Q
Would damn the mother of any Knutsdorp squire	K4
And crown his father like a stag of ten	S
Quarrel on quarrel followed from that night	B4
Till Tycho sickened of his ancient name	Q2
And wandering through the woods about his home	L4
Found on a hill top ringed with fragrant pines	Q
A little open glade of whispering ferns	Q
Thither at night he stole to watch the stars	Q
And there he told the oldest tale on earth	Y
To one that watched beside him one whose eyes	Q
Shone with true love more beautiful than the stars	Q
A daughter of earth the peasant girl Christine	S
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They met there in the dusk on his last night	B4
At home before he went to Wittenberg	M4
They stood knee deep among the whispering ferns	Q
And said good bye	A
I shall return he said	I4
And shame them for their folly who would set	N4
Their pride above the stars Christine and you	A2
At Wittenberg or Rostoch I shall find	B3
More chances and more knowledge All those worlds	Q
Are still to conquer We know nothing yet	N4
The books are crammed with fables They foretell	O4
Here an eclipse and there a dawning moon	S
But most of them were out a month or more	D
On Jupiter and Saturn	S
There's one way	L2
And only one to knowledge of the law	L
Whereby the stars are steered and so to read	I4
The future even perhaps the destinies	Q
Of men and nations only one sure way	L2
And that's to watch them watch them and record	P4
The truth we know and not the lies we dream	Q4
Dear while I watch them though the hills and sea	Q
Divide us every night our eyes can meet	U2
Among those constant glories Every night	B4
Your eyes and mine upraised to that bright realm	R4
Can in one moment speak across the world	P
I shall come back with knowledge and with power	N
And you will wait for me	Q
She answered him	X3
In silence with the starlight of her eyes	Q
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II	A
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He watched the skies at Wittenberg The plague	V2
Drove him to Rostoch and he watched them there	S2
But even there the plague of little minds	Q
Beset him At a wedding feast he met	N4
His noble countryman Manderup who asked	X
With mocking courtesy whether Tycho Brahe	B
Was ready yet to practise his black art	Y2
At country fairs The guests and Tycho laughed	W3
Whereat the swaggering Junker blandly sneered	S4
If fortune telling fail Christine will dance	Q
Thus tambourine on hip he struck a pose	Q
Her pretty feet will pack that booth of yours	Q
They fought at midnight in a wood with swords	Q
And not a spark of light but those that leapt	N3
Blue from the clashing blades Tycho had lost	T4
His moon and stars awhile almost his life	U4
For in one furious bout his enemy's blade	H
Dashed like a scribble of lightning into the face	Q
Of Tycho Brahe and left him spluttering blood	R3
Groping through that dark wood with outstretched hands	Q
To fall in a death black swoon	S
They carried him back	V4
To Rostoch and when Tycho saw at last	W4
That mirrored patch of mutilated flesh	X4
Seared as by fire between the frank blue eyes	Q
And firm young mouth where like a living flower	N
Upon some stricken tree youth lingered still	Y4
He'd but one thought Christine would shrink from him	X3
In fear or worse in pity An end had come	Z4
Worse than old age to all the glory of youth	M
Urania would not let her lover stray	L2
Into a mortal's arms He must remain	S
Her own for ever and for ever alone	S
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Yet as the days went by to face the world	P
He made himself a delicate mask of gold	H2
And silver shaped like those that minstrels wear	S2
At carnival in Venice or when love
Disguising its disguise of mortal flesh	X4
Wooes as a nameless prince from far away	L2
And when this world's day with its blaze and coil
Was ended and the first white star awoke
In that pure realm where all our tumults die	A
His eyes and hers meeting on Hesperus	Q
Renewed their troth
He seemed to see Christine	S
Ringed by the pine trees on that distant hill	Y4
A small white figure lost in space and time
Yet gazing at the sky and conquering all	F3
Height depth and heaven itself by the sheer power	N
Of love at one with everlasting laws	Q
A love that shared the constancy of heaven	S
And spoke to him across above the world	P
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III	A
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Not till he crossed the Danube did he find	B3
Among the fountains and the storied eaves	Q
Of Augsburg one to share his task with him	X3
Paul Hainzel of that city greatly loved
To talk with Tycho of the strange new dreams	Q
Copernicus had kindled Did this earth	Y
Move Was the sun the centre of our scheme	Q4
And Tycho told him there is but one way	L2
To know the truth and that's to sweep aside	F
All the dark cobwebs of old sophistry	N
And watch and learn that moving alphabet	N4
Each smallest silver character inscribed
Upon the skies themselves noting them down	S
Till on a day we find them taking shape
In phrases with a meaning and at last	W4
The hard won beauty of that celestial book
With all its epic harmonies unfold	H2
Like some great poet's universal song	O3
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He was a great magician Tycho Brahe	B
Hainzel he said we have no magic wand
But what the truth can give us If we find	B3
Even with a compass through a bedroom window	W2
That half the glittering Almagest is wrong	O3
Think you what noble conquests might be ours	Q
Had we but nobler instruments	Q
He showed
Quivering with eagerness his first rude plan	S
For that great quadrant not the wooden toy
Of old Scultetus but a kingly weapon	S
Huge as a Roman battering ram and fine	S
In its divisions as any goldsmith's work	J4
It could be built said Tycho but the cost
Would buy a dozen culverin for your wars	Q
Then Hainzel fired by Tycho's burning brain	S
Answered We'll make it We've a war to wage
On Chaos and his kingdoms of the night	B4
They chose the cunningest artists of the town	S
Clock makers jewellers carpenters and smiths	Q
And setting them all afire with Tycho's dream	Q4
Within a month his dream was oak and brass	Q
Its beams were fourteen cubits solid oak
Banded with iron Its arch was polished brass	Q
Whereon five thousand exquisite divisions	Q
Were marked to show the minutes of degrees	Q
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So huge and heavy it was a score of men	S
Could hardly drag and fix it to its place	Q
In Hainzel's garden	S
Many a shining night	B4
Tycho and Hainzel out of that maze of flowers	Q
Charted the stars discovering point by point
How all the records erred until the fame	Q2
Of this new master hovering above the schools	Q
Like a strange hawk threatened the creeping dreams	Q
Of all the Aristotelians and began	S
To set their mouse holes twittering Tycho Brahe	B
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Then Tycho Brahe came home to find Christine	S
Up to that whispering glade of ferns he sped	I4
At the first wink of Hesperus	Q
He stood
In shadow under the darkest pine to hide	F
The little golden mask upon his face	Q
He wondered will she shrink from me in fear	N
Or loathing Will she even come at all	F3
And as he wondered like a light she moved
Before him	X3
Is it you	A2
Christine Christine	S
He whispered It is I the mountebank
Playing a jest upon you It's only a mask
Do not be frightened I am here behind it	Y3
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Her red lips parted and between them shone	S
The little teeth like white pomegranate seeds	Q
He saw her frightened eyes	Q
Then with a cry	N
Her arms went round him and her eyelids closed
Lying against his heart she set her lips	Q
Against his lips and claimed him for her own	S
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IV
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One frosty night as Tycho bent his way	L2
Home to the dark old abbey he upraised
His eyes and saw a portent in the sky	N
There in its most familiar patch of blue	A2
Where Cassiopeia's five fold glory burned
An unknown brilliance quivered a huge star	N
Unseen before a strange new visitant
To heavens unchangeable as the world believed
Since the creation	S
Could new stars be born	S
Night after night he watched that miracle
Growing and changing colour as it grew	A2
White at the first and large as Jupiter	N
And in the third month yellow and larger yet
Red in the fifth month like Aldebaran	S
And larger even than Lyra In the seventh
Bluish like Saturn whence it dulled and dwined
Little by little till after eight months more	N
Into the dark abysmal blue of night
Whence it arose the wonder died away	L2
But while it blazed above him Tycho brought
Those delicate records of two hundred nights	Q
To Copenhagen There in his golden mask
At supper with Pratensis who believed
Only what old books told him Tycho met
Dancey the French Ambassador rainbow gay	L2
In satin hose and doublet supple and thin	S
Brown eyed and bearded with a soft black tuft
Neat as a blackbird's wing a spirit as keen	S
And swift as France on all the starry trails	Q
Of thought
He saw the deep and simple fire	N
The mystery of all genius in those eyes	Q
Above that golden wizard
Tycho raised
His wine cup brimming they thought with purple dreams	Q
And bade them drink to their triumphant Queen	S
Of all the Muses to their Lady of Light
Urania and the great new star	N
They laughed
Thinking the young astrologer's golden mask
Hid a sardonic jest
The skies are clear	N
Said Tycho Brahe and we have eyes to see	Q
Put out your candles Open those windows there	N
The colder darkness breathed upon their brows	Q
And Tycho pointed into the deep blue night
There in their most immutable height of heaven	S
In ipso caelo in the ethereal realm	R4
Beyond all planets red as Mars it burned
The one impossible glory	Q
But it's true	A2
Pratensis gasped then clutching the first straw	N
Now I recall how Pliny the Elder said
Hipparchus also saw a strange new star	N
Not where the comets not where the Rosae bloom
And fade but in that solid crystal sphere	N
Where nothing changes	Q
Tycho smiled and showed
The record of his watchings	Q
But the world
Must know all this cried Dancey You must print it
Print it said Tycho turning that golden mask
On both his friends Could I a noble print
This trafficking with Urania in a book
They'd hound me out of Denmark This disgrace	Q
Of work with hands or brain no matter why	N
No matter how in one who ought to dwell	O4
Fixed to the solid upper sphere my friends	Q
Would never be forgiven	S
Dancey stared
In mute amazement but that mask of gold
Outstared him sphinx like and inscrutable
	-
Soon through all Europe like the blinded moths	Q
Roused by a lantern in old palaces	Q
Among the mouldering tapestries of thought
Weird fables woke and fluttered to and fro	W2
And wild eyed sages hunted them for truth	M
The Italian Frangipani thought the star	N
The lost Electra that had left her throne	S
Among the Pleiads and plunged into the night
Like a veiled mourner when Troy town was burned
The German painter Busch of Erfurt wrote
It was a comet made of mortal sins	Q
A poisonous mist touched by the wrath of God
To fire from which there would descend on earth	Y
All manner of evil plagues and sudden death
Frenchmen and famine	S
Preachers thumped and raved
Theodore Beza in Calvin's pulpit tore	N
His grim black gown and vowed it was the Star	N
That led the Magi It had now returned
To mark the world's end and the Judgment Day	L2
Then in this hubbub Dancey told the king
Of Denmark There is one who knows the truth	M
Your subject Tycho Brahe who night by night
Watched and recorded all that truth could see	Q
It would bring honour to all Denmark sire	N
If Tycho could forget his rank awhile
And print these great discoveries in a book
For all the world to read
So Tycho Brahe	B
Received a letter in the king's own hand
Urging him Truth is the one pure fountain head
Of all nobility Pray forget your rank
His noble kinsmen echoed If you wish
To please His Majesty and ourselves forget
Your rank
I will said Tycho Brahe	B
Your reasoning has convinced me I will print
My book 'De Nova Stella ' And to prove
All you have said concerning temporal rank
And this eternal truth you love so well	O4
I marry to day they foamed but all their mouths	Q
Were stopped and stuffed and sealed with their own words	Q
I marry to day my own true love Christine	S
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V	Q
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They thought him a magician Tycho Brahe	B
Perhaps he was There's magic all around us	Q
In rocks and trees and in the minds of men	S
Deep hidden springs of magic
He that strikes	Q
The rock aright may find them where he will	Y4
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And Tycho tasted happiness in his hour	N
There was a prince in Denmark in those days	Q
And when he heard how other kings desired
The secrets of this new astrology	Q
He said This man in after years will bring
Glory to Denmark honour to her prince	Q
He is a Dane Give him this isle of Wheen	S
And let him make his great discoveries there	N
Let him have gold to buy his instruments	Q
And build his house and his observatory	Q
	-
So Tycho set this island where he lived
Whispering with wizardry and in its heart
He lighted that strange lanthorn of the law	N
And built himself that wonder of the world
Uraniborg a fortress for the truth	M
A city of the heavens	Q
Around it ran	S
A mighty rampart twenty two feet high	N
And twenty feet in thickness at the base	Q
Its angles pointed north south east and west
With gates and turrets and within this wall	F3
Were fruitful orchards apple and cherry and pear	N
And sheltered in their midst from all but sun	S
A garden warm and busy with singing bees	Q
There many an hour his flaxen haired Christine	S
Sang to her child her first born Magdalen	S
Or watched her playing a flower among the flowers	Q
Dark in the centre of that zone of bliss	Q
Arose the magic towers of Tycho Brahe	B
Two of them had great windows in their roofs	Q
Opening upon the sky where'er he willed
And under these observatories he made
A library of many a golden book
Poets and sages of old Greece and Rome	L4
And many a mellow legend many a dream	Q4
Of dawning truth in Egypt or the dusk
Of Araby Under all of these he made
A subterranean crypt for alchemy	Q
With sixteen furnaces and under this	Q
He sank a well so deep that Jeppe declared
He had tapped the central fountains of the world
And drew his magic from those cold clear springs	Q
This was the very well said Jeppe the dwarf
Where Truth was hidden but by Tycho Brahe	B
And his weird skill the magic water flowed
Through pipes uphill to all the house above
The kitchen where his cooks could broil a trout
For sages or prepare a feast for kings	Q
The garrets for the students in the roof
The guest rooms and the red room to the north
The study and the blue room to the south
The small octagonal yellow room that held
The sunlight like a jewel all day long
And Magdalen with her happy dreams at night
Then facing to the west one long green room
The ceiling painted like the bower of Eve
With flowers and leaves the windows opening wide
Through which Christine and Tycho Brahe at dawn	S
Could see the white sails drifting on the Sound
Like petals from their orchard
To the north
He built a printing house for noble books	Q
Poems and those deep legends of the sky	N
Still to be born at his Uraniborg	N
Beyond the rampart to the north arose	Q
A workshop for his instruments To the south
A low thatched farm house rambled round a yard
Alive with clucking hens and further yet
To southward on another hill he made
A great house for his larger instruments	Q
And called it Stiernborg mountain of the stars	Q
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And on his towers and turrets Tycho set
Statues with golden verses in the praise	Q
Of famous men the bearers of the torch
From Ptolemy to the new Copernicus	Q
Then in that storm proof mountain of the stars	Q
He set in all their splendour of new made brass	Q
His armouries for the assault of heaven	S
Circles in azimuth armillary spheres	Q
Revolving zodiacs with great brazen rings	Q
Quadrants of solid brass ten cubits broad
Brass parallactic rules made to revolve
In azimuth clocks with wheels an astrolabe
And that large globe strengthened by oaken beams	Q
He made at Augsburg	N
All his gold he spent
But Denmark had a prince in those great days	Q
And in his brain the dreams of Tycho Brahe	B
Kindled a thirst for glory So he made
Tycho the Lord of sundry lands and rents	Q
And Keeper of the Chapel where the kings	Q
Of Oldenburg were buried for he said
To whom could all these kings entrust their bones	Q
More fitly than to him who read the stars	Q
And though a mortal knew immortal laws	Q
And paced at night the silent halls of heaven	S
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VI	N
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He was a great magician Tycho Brahe	B
There on his island for a score of years	Q
He watched the skies recording star on star	N
For future ages and by patient toil
Perfected his great tables of the sun	S
The moon the planets	Q
There too happy far	N
For any history sons and daughters rose	Q
A little clan of love around Christine	S
And Tycho thought when I am dead my sons	Q
Will rule and work in my Uraniborg	N
And yet a doubt would trouble him for he knew	S
The children of Christine would still be held
Ignoble by the world
Disciples came	Q2
Young eyed and swift the bearers of the torch
From many a city to Uraniborg	N
And Tycho Brahe received them like a king	N
And bade them light their torches at his fire	N
The King of Scotland came with all his court
And dwelt eight days in Tycho Brahe's domain	S
Asking him many a riddle deep and dark	N
Whose answer none the less a king should know	S
What boots it on this earth to be a king	N
To rule a part of earth and not to know	S
The worth of his own realm whether he rule
As God's vice gerent and his realm be still	Y4
The centre of the centre of all worlds	Q
Or whether as Copernicus proclaimed
This earth itself be moving a lost grain	S
Of dust among the innumerable stars	Q
For this would dwarf all glory but the soul
In king or peasant that can hail the truth	M
Though truth should slay it
So to Tycho Brahe	B
The king became a subject for eight days	Q
But in the crowded hall when he had gone	S
Jeppe raised his matted head with a chuckle of glee	Q
Quiet as the gurgle of joy in a dark rock pool
When the first ripple and wash of the first spring tide
Flows bubbling under the dry sun blackened fringe
Of seaweed setting it all afloat again	S
In magical colours like a merman's hair	N
Jeppe has a thought the gay young students cried
Thronging him round for all believed that Jeppe
Was fey and had strange visions of the truth	M
What is the thought Jeppe
I can think no thoughts	Q
Croaked Jeppe But I have made myself a song	N
Silence they cried for Jeppe the nightingale
Sing Jeppe
And wagging his great head to and fro	S
Before the fire with deep dark eyes he crooned
	-
THE SONG OF JEPPE
	-
What said the king	N
Is earth a bird or bee	Q
Can this uncharted boundless realm of ours	Q
Drone thro' the sky with leagues of struggling sea	Q
Forests and hills and towns and palace towers	Q
Ay said the dwarf
I have watched from Stiernborg's crown	S
Her far dark rim uplift against the sky	N
But while earth soars men say the stars go down	S
And while earth sails men say the stars go by	N
An elvish tale
Ask Jeppe the dwarf He knows	Q
That's why his eyes look fey for chuckling deep
Heels over head amongst the stars he goes	Q
As all men go but most are sound asleep
King saint sage
Even those that count it true	S
Act as this miracle touched them not at all	F3
They are borne undizzied thro' the rushing blue	S
And build their empires on a sky tossed ball	F3
	-
Then said the king	N
If earth so lightly move
What of my realm O what shall now stand sure	N
Naught said the dwarf in all this world but love
All else is dream stuff and shall not endure	N
'Tis nearer now	S
Our universe hath no centre	N
Our shadowy earth and fleeting heavens no stay
But that deep inward realm which each can enter	N
Even Jeppe the dwarf by his own secret way
	-
Where said the king	N
O where I have not found it
Here said the dwarf and music echoed here	N
This infinite circle hath no line to bound it
Therefore that deep strange centre is everywhere	N
Let the earth soar thro' heaven that centre abideth	M
Or plunge to the pit His covenant still holds true	S
In the heart of a dying bird the Master hideth	M
In the soul of a king said the dwarf
and in my soul too	S
	-
	-
	-
	-
VII
	-
	-
Princes and courtiers came a few to seek	N
A little knowledge many more to gape
In wonder at Tycho's gold and silver mask	N
Or when they saw the beauty of his towers	Q
Envy and hate him for them
Thus arose	Q
The small grey cloud upon the distant sky	N
That broke in storm at last
Beware croaked Jeppe
Lifting his shaggy head beside the fire	N
When guests like these had gone Master beware	N
And Tycho of the frank blue eyes would laugh
Even when he found Witichius playing him false	Q
His anger like a momentary breeze	Q
Died on the dreaming deep for Tycho Brahe	B
Turned to a nobler riddle Have you thought
He asked his young disciples how the sea	Q
Is moved to that strange rhythm we call the tides	Q
He that can answer this shall have his name	Q2
Honoured among the bearers of the torch
While Pegasus flies above Uraniborg	N
I was delayed three hours or more to day
By the neap tide The fishermen on the coast
Are never wrong They time it by the moon	S
Post hoc perhaps not propter hoc and yet
Through all the changes of the sky and sea	Q
That old white clock of ours with the battered face	Q
Does seem infallible
There's a love song too	S
The sailors on the coast of Sweden sing	N
I have often pondered it Your courtly poets	Q
Upbraid the inconstant moon But these men know	S
The moon and sea are lovers and they move
In a most constant measure Hear the words	Q
And tell me if you can what silver chains	Q
Bind them together Then in a voice as low	S
And rhythmical as the sea he spoke that song	N
	-
THE SHEPHERDESS OF THE SEA	Q
	-
Reproach not yet our sails' delay
You cannot see the shoaling bay
The banks of sand the fretful bars	Q
That ebb left naked to the stars	Q
The sea's white shepherdess the moon	S
Shall lead us into harbour soon	S
	-
Dear when you see her glory shine	S
Between your fragrant boughs of pine	S
Know there is but one hour to wait
Before her hands unlock the gate
And the full flood of singing foam	L4
Follow her lovely footsteps home	L4
	-
Then waves like flocks of silver sheep
Come rustling inland from the deep
And into rambling valleys press	Q
Behind their heavenly shepherdess	Q
You cannot see them Lift your eyes	Q
And see their mistress in the skies	Q
She rises with her silver bow	S
	-
I feel the tide begin to flow	S
And every thought and hope and dream	Q4
Follow her call and homeward stream	Q4
Borne on the universal tide
The wanderer hastens to his bride
The sea's white shepherdess the moon	S
Shall lead him into harbour soon	S
	-
	-
	-
	-
VIII
	-
	-
He was a great magician Tycho Brahe	B
But not so great that he could read the heart
Or rule the hand of princes	Q
When his friend
King Frederick died the young Prince Christian reigned
And round him fool and knave made common cause	Q
Against the magic that could pour their gold
Into a gulf of stars This Tycho Brahe	B
Had grown too proud He held them in contempt
So they believed for when he spoke their thoughts	Q
Crept at his feet like spaniels Junkerdom	Q4
Felt it was foolish for he towered above it
And so it hated him Did he not spend
Gold that a fool could spend as quickly as he	B
Were there not great estates bestowed upon him	Q4
In wisdom's name that from the dawn of time	Q4
Had been the natural right of Junkerdom	Q4
And would he not bequeath them to his heirs	Q
The children of Christine an unfree woman	S
Why you sire even you they told the king	N
He has made a laughing stock That horoscope
He read for you the night when you were born	S
Printed and bound it in green velvet too	S
Read it The whole world laughs at it He said
That Venus was the star that ruled your fate
And Venus would destroy you Tycho Brahe	B
Inspired your royal father with the fear	N
That kept your youth so long in leading strings	Q
The fear that every pretty hedgerow flower	N
Would be your Circe So he thought to avenge
Our mockery of this peasant girl Christine	S
To whom indeed he plays the faithful swine	S
Knowing full well his gold and silver nose	Q
Would never win another	N
Thus the sky	N
Darkened above Uraniborg and those	Q
Who dwelt within it till one evil day
One seeming happy day when Tycho marked
The seven hundredth star upon his chart
Two pompous officers from Walchendorp
The chancellor knocked at Tycho's eastern gate
We are sent they said to see and to report
What use you make of these estates of yours	Q
Your alchemy has turned more gold to lead
Than Denmark can approve The uses now	S
Show us the uses of this work of yours	Q
Then Tycho showed his tables of the stars	Q
Seven hundred stars each noted in its place	Q
With exquisite precision the result
Of watching heaven for five and twenty years	Q
And is this all they said
They sought to invent
Some ground for damning him The truth alone	S
Would serve them as it seemed For these were men	S
Who could not understand
Not all I hope
Said Tycho for I think before I die	N
I shall have marked a thousand
To what end
When shall we reap the fruits of all this toil
Show us its uses	Q
In the time to come	Q4
Said Tycho Brahe perhaps a hundred years	Q
Perhaps a thousand when our own poor names	Q
Are quite forgotten and our kingdoms dust
On one sure certain day the torch bearers	Q
Will at some point of contact see a light
Moving upon this chaos Though our eyes	Q
Be shut for ever in an iron sleep
Their eyes shall see the kingdom of the law	N
Our undiscovered cosmos They shall see it
A new creation rising from the deep
Beautiful whole
We are like men that hear	N
Disjointed notes of some supernal choir	N
Year after year we patiently record
All we can gather In that far off time	Q4
A people that we have not known shall hear them	Q4
Moving like music to a single end
	-
They could not understand this life that sought
Only to bear the torch and hand it on	S
And so they made report that all the dreams	Q
Of Tycho Brahe were fruitless perilous too	S
Since he avowed that any fruit they bore	N
Would fall in distant years to alien hands	Q
	-
Little by little Walchendorp withdrew	S
His rents from Tycho Brahe accusing him	Q4
Of gross neglects The Chapel at Roskilde	S
Was falling into ruin Tycho Brahe	B
Was Keeper of the Bones of Oldenburg	N
He must rebuild the Chapel All the gifts	Q
That Frederick gave to help him in his task	N
Were turned to stumbling blocks till one dark day	S
He called his young disciples round him there	N
And in that mellow library of dreams	Q
Lit by the dying sunset poured his heart	S
And mind before them bidding them farewell	O4
Through the wide open windows as he spoke	N
They heard the sorrowful whisper of the sea	B
Ebbing and flowing around Uraniborg	N
An end has come he said to all we planned	S
Uraniborg has drained her treasury dry	N
Your Alma Mater now must close her gates	Q
On you her guests on me and worst of all	F3
On one most dear who made this place my home	Q4
For you are young your homes are all to win	S
And you would all have gone your separate ways	Q
In a brief while and though I think you love
Your college of the skies it could not mean	S
All that it meant to those who called it 'home '	-
	-
You that have worked with me for one brief year	N
Will never quite forget Uraniborg	N
This room the sunset gilding all those books	Q
The star charts and that old celestial globe
The long bright evenings by the winter fire	N
Of Tycho Brahe were fruitless perilous	Q
The talk that opened heaven the songs you sung	N
Yes even I think the tricks you played with Jeppe
Will somehow when yourselves are growing old	S
Be hallowed into beauty touched with tears	Q
For you will wish they might be yours again	S
	-
These have been mine for five and twenty years	Q
And more than these the work the dreams I shared	S
With you and others here My heart will break	N
To leave them But the appointed time has come	Q4
As it must come to all men	S
You and I	N
Have watched too many constant stars to dream	Q4
That heaven or earth the destinies of men	S
Or nations are the sport of chance An end	S
Comes to us all through blindness age or death	M
If mine must come in exile it stall find me	B
Bearing the torch as far as I can bear it	S
Until I fall at the feet of the young runner	N
Who takes it from me and carries it out of sight	S
Into the great new age I shall not know	S
Into the great new realms I must not tread	S
Come then swift footed let me see you stand	S
Waiting before me crowned with youth and joy
At the next turning Take it from my hand	S
For I am almost ready now to fall	F3
	-
Something I have achieved yes though I say it	S
I have not loitered on that fiery way	S
And if I front the judgment of the wise	Q
In centuries to come with more of dread	S
Than my destroyers it is because this work	N
Will be of use remembered and appraised	S
When all their hate is dead	S
I say the work	N
Not the blind rumour the glory or fame of it	S
These observations of seven hundred stars	Q
Are little enough in sight of those great hosts	Q
Which nightly wheel around us though I hope
Yes I still hope in some more generous land	S
To make my thousand up before I die	N
Little enough I know a midget's work	N
The men that follow me with more delicate art	S
May add their tens of thousands yet my sum	Q4
Will save them just that five and twenty years	Q
Of patience bring them sooner to their goal
That kingdom of the law I shall not see	B
We are on the verge of great discoveries	Q
I feel them as a dreamer feels the dawn	S
Before his eyes are opened Many of you	S
Will see them In that day you will recall	F3
This our last meeting at Uraniborg	N
And how I told you that this work of ours	Q
Would lead to victories for the coming age
The victors may forget us What of that	S
Theirs be the palms the shouting and the praise	Q
Ours be the fathers' glory in the sons	Q
Ours the delight of giving the deep joy
Of labouring on the cliff's face all night long	N
Cutting them foot holes in the solid rock	N
Whereby they climb so gaily to the heights	Q
And gaze upon their new discovered worlds	Q
You will not find me there When you descend	S
Look for me in the darkness at the foot	S
Of those high cliffs under the drifted leaves	Q
That's where we hide at last we pioneers	Q
For we are very proud and must be sought	S
Before the world can find us in our graves	Q
There have been compensations I have seen	S
In darkness more perhaps than eyes can see	B
When sunlight blinds them on the mountain tops	Q
Guessed at a glory past our mortal range
And only mine because the night was mine	S
	-
Of those three systems of the universe	Q
The Ptolemaic held by all the schools	Q
May yet be proven false We yet may find	S
This earth of ours is not the sovran lord	S
Of all those wheeling spheres Ourselves have marked	S
Movements among the planets that forbid	S
Acceptance of it wholly Some of these	Q
Are moving round the sun if we can trust	S
Our years of watching There are stranger dreams	Q
This radical Copernicus the priest	S
Of whom I often talked with you declares	Q
Ail of these movements can be reconciled	S
If a hypothesis only we should take	N
The sun itself for centre and assume	Q4
That this huge earth so 'stablished so secure	N
In its foundations is a planet also	S
And moves around the sun	S
I cannot think it	S
This leap of thought is yet too great for me	B
I have no doubt that Ptolemy was wrong	N
Some of his planets move around the sun	S
Copernicus is nearer to the truth	M
In some things But the planets we have watched	S
Still wander from the course that he assigned	S
Therefore my system which includes the best	S
Of both I hold may yet be proven true	S
This earth of ours as Jeppe declared one day	S
So simply that we laughed is 'much too big	N
To move ' so let it be the centre still	Y4
And let the planets move around their sun	S
But let the sun with all its planets move
Around our central earth	M
This at the least	S
Accords with all we know and saves mankind	S
From that enormous plunge into the night	S
Saves them from voyaging for ten thousand years	Q
Through boundless darkness without sight of land	S
Saves them from all that agony of loss	Q
As one by one the beacon fires of faith	M
Are drowned in blackness	Q
I beseech you then	S
Let me be proven wrong before you take	N
That darkness lightly If at last you find	S
The proven facts against me take the plunge
Launch out into that darkness Let the lamps	Q
Of heaven the glowing hearth fires that we knew	S
Die out behind you while the freshening wind	S
Blows on your brows and overhead you see	B
The stars of truth that lead you from your home	Q4
	-
I love this island every little glen	S
Hazel wood brook and fish pond every bough	S
And blossom in that garden and I hoped	S
To die here But it is not chance I know	S
That sends me wandering through the world again	S
My use perhaps is ended and the power	N
That made me breaks me	B
As he spoke they saw	N
The tears upon his face He bowed his head	S
And left them silent in the darkened room	Q4
They saw his face no more	N
The self same hour	N
Tycho Christine and all their children left	S
Their island home for even In their ship
They took a few of the smaller instruments	Q
And that most precious record of the stars	Q
His legacy to the future Into the night	S
They vanished leaving on the ghostly cliffs	Q
Only one dark distorted dog like shape
To watch them sobbing under its matted hair	N
Master have you forgotten Jeppe your dwarf
	-
	-
	-
	-
IX	Q
	-
	-
He was a great magician Tycho Brahe	B
And yet his magic under changing skies	Q
Could never change his heart or touch the hills	Q
Of those far countries with the tints of home	Q4
And after many a month of wandering	N
He came to Prague and though with open hands	Q
Rodolphe received him like an exiled king	N
A new Aeneas exiled for the truth	M
For so they called him none could heal the wounds	Q
That bled within or lull his grief to sleep
With that familiar whisper of the waves	Q
Ebbing and flowing around Uraniborg	N
	-
Doggedly still he laboured point by point	S
Crept on with aching heart and burning brain	S
Until his table of the stars had reached	S
The thousand that he hoped to crown his toil
But Christine heard him murmuring in the night	S
The work the work Not to have lived in vain	S
Into whose hands can I entrust it all	F3
I thought to find him standing by the way	S
Waiting to seize the splendour from my hand	S
The swift young eyed runner with the torch
Let me not live in vain let me not fall	F3
Before I yield it to the appointed soul
And yet the Power that made and broke him heard	S
For on a certain day to Tycho came	Q4
Another exile guided through the dark	N
Of Europe by the starlight in his eyes	Q
Or that invisible hand which guides the world	S
He asked him as the runner with the torch
Alone could ask asked as a natural right	S
For Tycho's hard won life work those results	Q
His tables of the stars He gave his name	Q4
Almost as one who told him It is I	N
And yet unconscious that he told a name	Q4
Not famous yet though truth had marked him out	S
Already by his exile as her own	S
The name of Johann Kepler	N
It was strange
Wrote Kepler not long after for I asked	S
Unheard of things and yet he gave them to me	B
As if I were his son When first I saw him	Q4
We seemed to have known each other years ago	N
In some forgotten world I could not guess	Q
That Tycho Brahe was dying He was quick	N
Of temper and we quarrelled now and then	S
Only to find ourselves more closely bound	S
Than ever I believe that Tycho died	S
Simply of heartache for his native land	S
For though he always met me with a smile
Or jest upon his lips he could not sleep
Or work and often unawares I caught	S
Odd little whispered phrases on his lips	Q
As if he talked to himself in a kind of dream	Q4
Yet I believe the clouds dispersed a little
Around his death bed and with that strange joy
Which comes in death he saw the unchanging stars	Q
Christine was there She held him in her arms	Q
I think too that he knew his work was safe
An hour before he died he smiled at me	B
And whispered what he meant I hardly know	N
Perhaps a broken echo from the past	S
A fragment of some old familiar thought	S
And yet I seemed to know It haunts me still	Y4
'Come then swift footed let me see you stand	S
Waiting before me crowned with youth and joy
This is the turning Take it from my hand	S
For I am ready ready now to fall '	-

Alfred Noyes

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