Watchers of the Sky.

by Alfred Noyes.

PREFATORY NOTE

This volume, while it is complete in itself, is also the first of a trilogy, the scope of which is suggested in the prologue. The story of scientific discovery has its own epic unity--a unity of purpose and endeavour--the single torch pa.s.sing from hand to hand through the centuries; and the great moments of science when, after long labour, the pioneers saw their acc.u.mulated facts falling into a significant order--sometimes in the form of a law that revolutionised the whole world of thought--have an intense human interest, and belong essentially to the creative imagination of poetry. It is with these moments that my poem is chiefly concerned, not with any impossible attempt to cover the whole field or to make a new poetic system, after the Lucretian model, out of modern science.

The theme has been in my mind for a good many years; and the first volume, dealing with the "Watchers of the Sky," began to take definite shape during what was to me an unforgettable experience--the night I was privileged to spend on a summit of the Sierra Madre Mountains, when the first trial was made of the new 100-inch telescope. The prologue to this volume attempts to give a picture of that night, and to elucidate my own purpose.

The first tale in this volume plunges into the middle of things, with the revolution brought about by Copernicus; but, within the tale, partly by means of an incidental lyric, there is an attempt to give a bird's-eye view of what had gone before. The torch then pa.s.ses to Tycho Brahe, who, driven into exile with his tables of the stars, at the very point of death hands them over to a young man named Kepler.

Kepler, with their help, arrives at his own great laws, and corresponds with Galileo--the intensely human drama of whose life I have endeavoured to depict with more historical accuracy than can be attributed to much of the poetic literature that has gathered around his name. Too many writers have succ.u.mbed to the temptation of the cry, "e pur si muove!" It is, of course, rejected by every reliable historian, and was first attributed to Galileo a hundred years after his death. M. Ponsard, in his play on the subject, succ.u.mbed to the extent of making his final scene end with Galileo "frappant du pied la terre," and crying, "pourtant elle tourne." Galileo's recantation was a far more subtle and tragically complicated affair than that. Even Landor succ.u.mbed to the easy method of making him display his entirely legendary scars to Milton. If these familiar pictures are not to be found in my poem, it may be well for me to a.s.sure the hasty reader that it is because I have endeavoured to present a more just picture.

I have tried to suggest the complications of motive in this section by a series of letters pa.s.sing between the characters chiefly concerned.

There was, of course, a certain poetic significance in the legend of "e pur si muove"; and this significance I have endeavoured to retain without violating historical truth.

In the year of Galileo's death Newton was born, and the subsequent sections carry the story on to the modern observatory again. The form I have adopted is a development from that of an earlier book, "_Tales of the Mermaid Tavern_" where certain poets and discoverers of another kind were brought together round a central idea, and their stories told in a combination of narrative and lyrical verse. "The Torch-Bearers" flowed all the more naturally into a similar form in view of the fact that Tycho Brahe, Kepler, and many other pioneers of science wrote a considerable number of poems.

Those imbedded in the works of Kepler--whose blazing and fantastic genius was, indeed, primarily poetic--are of extraordinary interest. I was helped, too, in the general scheme by those constant meetings between science and poetry, of which the most famous and beautiful are the visit of Sir Henry Wotton to Kepler, and the visit of Milton to Galileo in prison.

Even if science and poetry were as deadly opposites as the shallow often affirm, the method and scheme indicated above would at least make it possible to convey something of the splendour of the long battle for the light in its most human aspect. Poetry has its own precision of expression and, in modern times, it has been seeking more and more for truth, sometimes even at the expense of beauty. It may be possible to carry that quest a stage farther, to the point where, in the great rhythmical laws of the universe revealed by science, truth and beauty are reunited. If poetry can do this, it will not be without some value to science itself, and it will be playing its part in the reconstruction of a shattered world. The pa.s.sing of the old order of dogmatic religion has left the modern world in a strange chaos, craving for something in which it can unfeignedly believe, and often following will-o'-the-wisps. Forty years ago, Matthew Arnold prophesied that it would be for poetry, "where it is worthy of its high destinies," to help to carry on the purer fire, and to express in new terms those eternal ideas which must ever be the only sure stay of the human race. It is not within the province of science to attempt a post-Copernican justification of the ways of G.o.d to man; but, in the laws of nature revealed by science, and in "that grand sequence of events which"--as Darwin affirmed--"the mind refuses to accept as the result of blind chance," poetry may discover its own new grounds for the attempt. It is easy to a.s.sume that all hope and faith are shallow.

It is even easier to practise a really shallow and devitalising pessimism. The modern annunciation that there is a skeleton an inch beneath the skin of man is neither new nor profound. Neither science nor poetry can rest there; and if, in this poem, an attempt is made to show that spiritual values are not diminished or overwhelmed by the "fifteen hundred universes" that pa.s.sed in review before the telescope of Herschel, it is only after the opposite argument--so common and so easy to-day--has been faced; and only after poetry has at least endeavoured to follow the torch of science to its own deep-set boundary-mark in that immense darkness of s.p.a.ce and Time.

PROLOGUE

THE OBSERVATORY

At noon, upon the mountain's purple height, Above the pine-woods and the clouds it shone No larger than the small white dome of sh.e.l.l Left by the fledgling wren when wings are born.

By night it joined the company of heaven, And, with its constant light, became a star.

A needle-point of light, minute, remote, It sent a subtler message through the abyss, Held more significance for the seeing eye Than all the darkness that would blot it out, Yet could not dwarf it.

High in heaven it shone, Alive with all the thoughts, and hopes, and dreams Of man's adventurous mind.

Up there, I knew The explorers of the sky, the pioneers Of science, now made ready to attack That darkness once again, and win new worlds.

To-morrow night they hoped to crown the toil Of twenty years, and turn upon the sky The n.o.blest weapon ever made by man.

War had delayed them. They had been drawn away Designing darker weapons. But no gun Could outrange this.

"To-morrow night"--so wrote their chief--"we try Our great new telescope, the hundred-inch.

Your Milton's 'optic tube' has grown in power Since Galileo, famous, blind, and old, Talked with him, in that prison, of the sky.

We creep to power by inches. Europe trusts Her 'giant forty' still. Even to-night Our own old sixty has its work to do; And now our hundred-inch . . . I hardly dare To think what this new muzzle of ours may find.

Come up, and spend that night among the stars Here, on our mountain-top. If all goes well, Then, at the least, my friend, you'll see a moon Stranger, but nearer, many a thousand mile Than earth has ever seen her, even in dreams.

As for the stars, if seeing them were all, Three thousand million new-found points of light Is our rough guess. But never speak of this.

You know our press. They'd miss the one result To flash 'three thousand millions' round the world."

To-morrow night! For more than twenty years, They had thought and planned and worked. Ten years had gone, One-fourth, or more, of man's brief working life, Before they made those solid tons of gla.s.s, Their hundred-inch reflector, the clear pool, The polished flawless pool that it must be To hold the perfect image of a star.

And, even now, some secret flaw--none knew Until to-morrow's test--might waste it all.

Where was the gambler that would stake so much,-- Time, patience, treasure, on a single throw?

The cost of it,--they'd not find that again, Either in gold or life-stuff! All their youth Was fuel to the flame of this one work.

Once in a lifetime to the man of science, Despite what fools believe his ice-cooled blood, There comes this drama.

If he fails, he fails Utterly. He at least will have no time For fresh beginnings. Other men, no doubt, Years hence, will use the footholes that he cut In those precipitous cliffs, and reach the height, But he will never see it."

So for me, The light words of that letter seemed to hide The pa.s.sion of a lifetime, and I shared The crowning moment of its hope and fear.

Next day, through whispering aisles of palm we rode Up to the foot-hills, dreaming desert-hills That to a.s.suage their own delicious drought Had set each tawny sun-kissed slope ablaze With peach and orange orchards.

Up and up, Along the thin white trail that wound and climbed And zig-zagged through the grey-green mountain sage, The car went crawling, till the shining plain Below it, like an airman's map, unrolled.

Houses and orchards dwindled to white specks In midget cubes and squares of tufted green.

Once, as we rounded one steep curve, that made The head swim at the canyoned gulf below, We saw through thirty miles of lucid air Elvishly small, sharp as a crumpled petal Blown from the stem, a yard away, a sail Lazily drifting on the warm blue sea.

Up for nine miles along that spiral trail Slowly we wound to reach the lucid height Above the clouds, where that white dome of sh.e.l.l, No wren's now, but an eagle's, took the flush Of dying day. The sage-brush all died out, And all the southern growths, and round us now, Firs of the north, and strong, storm-rooted pines Exhaled a keener fragrance; till, at last, Reversing all the laws of lesser hills, They towered like giants round us. Darkness fell Before we reached the mountain's naked height.

Over us, like some great cathedral dome, The observatory loomed against the sky; And the dark mountain with its headlong gulfs Had lost all memory of the world below; For all those cloudless throngs of glittering stars And all those glimmerings where the abyss of s.p.a.ce Is powdered with a milky dust, each grain A burning sun, and every sun the lord Of its own darkling planets,--all those lights Met, in a darker deep, the lights of earth, Lights on the sea, lights of invisible towns, Trembling and indistinguishable from stars, In those black gulfs around the mountain's feet.

Then, into the glimmering dome, with bated breath, We entered, and, above us, in the gloom Saw that majestic weapon of the light Uptowering like the shaft of some huge gun Through one arched rift of sky.

Dark at its base With naked arms, the crew that all day long Had sweated to make ready for this night Waited their captain's word.

The switchboard shone With elfin lamps of white and red, and keys Whence, at a finger's touch, that monstrous tube Moved like a creature dowered with life and will, To peer from deep to deep.

Below it pulsed The clock-machine that slowly, throb by throb, Timed to the pace of the revolving earth, Drove the t.i.tanic muzzle on and on, Fixed to the chosen star that else would glide Out of its field of vision.

So, set free Balanced against the wheel of time, it swung, Or rested, while, to find new realms of sky The dome that housed it, like a moon revolved, So smoothly that the watchers hardly knew They moved within; till, through the glimmering doors, They saw the dark procession of the pines Like Indian warriors, quietly stealing by.

Then, at a word, the mighty weapon dipped Its muzzle and aimed at one small point of light One seeming insignificant star.

The chief, Mounting the ladder, while we held our breath, Looked through the eye-piece.

Then we heard him laugh His thanks to G.o.d, and hide it in a jest.

"A prominence on Jupiter!"-- They laughed, "What do you mean?"--"It's moving," cried the chief, They laughed again, and watched his glimmering face High overhead against that moving tower.

"Come up and see, then!"

One by one they went, And, though each laughed as he returned to earth, Their souls were in their eyes.

Then I, too, looked, And saw that insignificant spark of light Touched with new meaning, beautifully reborn, A swimming world, a perfect rounded pearl, Poised in the violet sky; and, as I gazed, I saw a miracle,--right on its upmost edge A tiny mound of white that slowly rose, Then, like an exquisite seed-pearl, swung quite clear And swam in heaven above its parent world To greet its three bright sister-moons.

A moon, Of Jupiter, no more, but clearer far Than mortal eyes had seen before from earth, O, beautiful and clear beyond all dreams Was that one silver phrase of the starry tune Which Galileo's "old discoverer" first Dimly revealed, dissolving into clouds The imagined fabric of our universe.

_"Jupiter stands in heaven and will stand Though all the sycophants bark at him,"_ he cried, Hailing the truth before he, too, went down, Whelmed in the cloudy wreckage of that dream.

So one by one we looked, the men who served Urania, and the men from Vulcan's forge.

A beautiful eagerness in the darkness lit The swarthy faces that too long had missed A meaning in the dull mechanic maze Of labour on this blind earth, but found it now.

Though only a moment's wandering melody Hopelessly far above, it gave their toil Its only consecration and its joy.

There, with dark-smouldering eyes and naked throats, Blue-dungareed, red-shirted, grimed and smeared With engine-grease and sweat, they gathered round The foot of that dim ladder; each muttering low As he came down, his wonder at what he saw To those who waited,--a picture for the brush Of Rembrandt, lighted only by the rift Above them, where the giant muzzle thrust Out through the dim arched roof, and slowly throbbed, Against the slowly moving wheel of the earth, Holding their chosen star.

There, like an elf, Perched on the side of that dark slanting tower The Italian mechanician watched the moons, That Italy discovered.

One by one, American, English, French, and Dutch, they climbed To see the wonder that their own blind hands Had helped to achieve.

At midnight while they paused To adjust the clock-machine, I wandered out Alone, into the silence of the night.

The silence? On that lonely height I heard Eternal voices; For, as I looked into the gulf beneath, Whence almost all the lights had vanished now, The whole dark mountain seemed to have lost its earth And to be sailing like a ship through heaven.

All round it surged the mighty sea-like sound Of soughing pine-woods, one vast ebb and flow Of absolute peace, aloof from all earth's pain, So calm, so quiet, it seemed the cradle-song, The deep soft breathing of the universe Over its youngest child, the soul of man.

And, as I listened, that Aeolian voice Became an invocation and a prayer: O you, that on your loftier mountain dwell And move like light in light among the thoughts Of heaven, translating our mortality Into immortal song, is there not one Among you that can turn to music now This long dark fight for truth? Not one to touch With beauty this long battle for the light, This little victory of the spirit of man Doomed to defeat--for what was all we saw To that which neither eyes nor soul could see?-- Doomed to defeat and yet unconquerable, Climbing its nine miles nearer to the stars.

Wars we have sung. The blind, blood-boltered kings Move with an epic music to their thrones.

Have you no song, then, of that n.o.bler war?

Of those who strove for light, but could not dream Even of this victory that they helped to win, Silent discoverers, lonely pioneers, Prisoners and exiles, martyrs of the truth Who handed on the fire, from age to age; Of those who, step by step, drove back the night And struggled, year on year, for one more glimpse Among the stars, of sovran law, their guide; Of those who searching inward, saw the rocks Dissolving into a new abyss, and saw Those planetary systems far within, Atoms, electrons, whirling on their way To build and to unbuild our solid world; Of those who conquered, inch by difficult inch, The freedom of this realm of law for man; Dreamers of dreams, the builders of our hope, The healers and the binders up of wounds, Who, while the dynasts drenched the world with blood, Would in the still small circle of a lamp Wrestle with death like Heracles of old To save one stricken child.

Is there no song To touch this moving universe of law With ultimate light, the glimmer of that great dawn Which over our ruined altars yet shall break In purer splendour, and restore mankind From darker dreams than even Lucretius knew To vision of that one Power which guides the world.

How should men find it? Only through those doors Which, opening inward, in each separate soul Give each man access to that Soul of all Living within each life, not to be found Or known, till, looking inward, each alone Meets the unknowable and eternal G.o.d.

And there was one that moved like light in light Before me there,--Love, human and divine, That can exalt all weakness into power,-- Whispering, _Take this deathless torch of song_...

Whispering, but with such faith, that even I Was humbled into thinking this might be Through love, though all the wisdom of the world Account it folly.

Let my breast be bared To every shaft, then, so that Love be still My one celestial guide the while I sing Of those who caught the pure Promethean fire One from another, each crying as he went down To one that waited, crowned with youth and joy,-- _Take thou the splendour, carry it out of sight Into the great new age I must not know, Into the great new realm I must not tread_.

I

COPERNICUS