WATCHERS OF THE SKY by Alfred Noyes
Aug. 5th, 2013 07:43 amWonderful poetry about scientific discovery and astronomy, humanising the old scientists who watched the sky and gave knowledge to future generations.
Truth, Celeste,
Truth and its laws are constant, even up there;
That's where one man may face and fight the world.
His weakness turns to strength. He is made one
With universal forces, and he holds
The password to eternity.
Gate after gate swings back through all the heavens.
No sentry halts him, and no flaming sword.
Say truth, Celeste, not fame."
"No, for I'll say
A better word," I told him. "I'll say love."
He took my face between his hands and said—
His face all dark between me and the stars—
"What's love, Celeste, but this dear face of truth
Upturned to heaven."
There is the dying Copernicus, hoping to once touch his book of discoveries; Tycho Brahe nine miles from Elsinore with his golden nose and fair Christine; Kepler and his salad-making wife; Galileo fighting the church; and Newton resolving rainbows and gravitational pulls. The prologue is the observatory, and William Herschel conducts and John Herschel remembers. Then in the epilogue the planets sing...
A magnificent intersection where the wonders of history and science and language meet, an extended discourse of the meaning of being human and looking up at the stars.
Truth, Celeste,
Truth and its laws are constant, even up there;
That's where one man may face and fight the world.
His weakness turns to strength. He is made one
With universal forces, and he holds
The password to eternity.
Gate after gate swings back through all the heavens.
No sentry halts him, and no flaming sword.
Say truth, Celeste, not fame."
"No, for I'll say
A better word," I told him. "I'll say love."
He took my face between his hands and said—
His face all dark between me and the stars—
"What's love, Celeste, but this dear face of truth
Upturned to heaven."
There is the dying Copernicus, hoping to once touch his book of discoveries; Tycho Brahe nine miles from Elsinore with his golden nose and fair Christine; Kepler and his salad-making wife; Galileo fighting the church; and Newton resolving rainbows and gravitational pulls. The prologue is the observatory, and William Herschel conducts and John Herschel remembers. Then in the epilogue the planets sing...
A magnificent intersection where the wonders of history and science and language meet, an extended discourse of the meaning of being human and looking up at the stars.