Astronomy
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 passing from hand to hand through the cent...
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...
2. Chapter 2This did not daunt me, then. Indeed, I saw Light upon chaos. Many discordant dreams Began to move in lucid music now. For what could be more baffling than the thought That those...
3. Chapter 3Soon through all Europe, like the blinded moths, Roused by a lantern in old palaces Among the mouldering tapestries of thought, Weird fables woke and fluttered to and fro, And w...
4. Chapter 4He was a great magician, Tycho Brahe, And yet his magic, under changing skies, Could never change his heart, or touch the hills Of those far countries with the tints of home. An...
5. Chapter 5My friend, my dearest friend, my own dear love, I, who am dead to love, and see around me The funeral tapers lighted, send this cry Out of my heart to yours, before the end. You...
6. Chapter 6I was his last disciple, as you say I went to him, at seventeen years of age, And offered him my hands and eyes to use, When, voicing the true mind and heart of Rome, Father Cas...
7. Chapter 7They are very neat and handsome, you'll agree. Solid in sense as Dryden at his best, And smooth as Waller, but with something more,-- That touch of grace, that airier elegance W...
8. Chapter 8If music lead us to a cry like this, I think I shall not lose it in the skies. I do but follow its own secret law As long ago I sought to understand Its golden mathematics; taug...
9. Chapter 9A nobler shield for us, a deeper sky; But even to us who know how far away Those constellations burn, the wonder bides That each vast sun can speed through the abyss Age after a...