Watchers of the Sky | Page 5

with startled eyes,
Whispered
together, in that dark house of dreams,
From which by one dim
crevice in the wall
He used to watch the stars.
"His book has come
From Nuremberg at last; but who would dare

To let him see it now?"--
"They have altered it!
Though Rome approved in full, this preface,
look,
Declares that his discoveries are a dream!"--
"He has asked a
thousand times if it has come;
Could we tear out those pages?"--
"He'd suspect."--
"What shall be done, then?"--
"Hold it back awhile.
That was the priest's voice in the room above.

He may forget it. Those last sacraments
May set his mind at rest,
and bring him peace."--
Then, stealing quietly to that upper door,

They opened it a little, and saw within
The lean white deathbed of
Copernicus
Who made our world a world without an end.
There, in
that narrow room, they saw his face
Grey, seamed with thought, lit by
a single lamp;
They saw those glorious eyes
Closing, that once had
looked beyond the spheres
And seen our ancient firmaments dissolve

Into a boundless night.
Beside him knelt
Two women, like bowed shadows. At his feet,
An
old physician watched him. At his head,
The cowled Franciscan
murmured, while the light
Shone faintly on the chalice.
All grew still.
The fragrance of the wine was like faint flowers,
The
first breath of those far celestial fields....
Then, like a dying soldier, that must leave
His last command to others,
while the fight
Is yet uncertain, and the victory far,
Copernicus
whispered, in a fevered dream,
"Yes, it is Death. But you must hold
him back,
There, in the doorway, for a little while,
Until I know the
work is rightly done.
Use all your weapons, doctor. I must live
To

see and touch one copy of my book.
Have they not brought it yet?
They promised me
It should be here by nightfall.
One of you go
And hasten it. I can hold back
Death till dawn.
Have they not brought it yet?--from Nuremberg.
Do not deceive me. I
must know it safe,
Printed and safe, for other men to use.
I could
die then. My use would be fulfilled.
What has delayed them? Will not
some one go
And tell them that my strength is running out?
Tell
them that book would be an angel's hand
In mine, an easier pillow for
my head,
A little lantern in the engulfing dark.
You see, I hid its
struggling light so long
Under too small a bushel, and I fear
It may
go out forever. In the noon
Of life's brief day, I could not see the need

As now I see it, when the night shuts down.
I was afraid, perhaps,
it might confuse
The lights that guide us for the souls of men.
But now I see three stages in our life.
At first, we bask contented in
our sun
And take what daylight shows us for the truth.
Then we
discover, in some midnight grief,
How all day long the sunlight
blinded us
To depths beyond, where all our knowledge dies.
That's
where men shrink, and lose their way in doubt.
Then, last, as death
draws nearer, comes a night
In whose majestic shadow men see God,

Absolute Knowledge, reconciling all.
So, all my life I pondered on
that scheme
Which makes this earth the centre of all worlds,

Lighted and wheeled around by sun and moon
And that great crystal
sphere wherein men thought
Myriads of lesser stars were fixed like
lamps,
Each in its place,--one mighty glittering wheel
Revolving
round this dark abode of man.
Night after night, with even pace they
moved.
Year after year, not altering by one point,
Their order, or
their stations, those fixed stars

In that revolving firmament. The
Plough
Still pointed to the Pole. Fixed in their sphere,
How else
explain that vast unchanging wheel?
How, but by thinking all those
lesser lights
Were huger suns, divided from our earth
By so

immense a gulf that, if they moved
Ten thousand leagues an hour
among themselves,
It would not seem one hair's-breadth to our eyes.

Utterly inconceivable, I know;
And yet we daily kneel to boundless
Power
And build our hope on that Infinitude.
This 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 enormous heavens
must circle earth
Diurnally--a journey that would need
Swiftness to
which the lightning flash would seem
A white slug creeping on the
walls of night;
While, if earth softly on her axle spun
One quiet
revolution answered all.
It was our moving selves that made the sky

Seem to revolve. Have not all ages seen
A like illusion baffling
half mankind
In life, thought, art? Men think, at every turn
Of their
own souls, the very heavens have moved.
Light upon chaos, light, and yet more light;
For--as I watched the
planets--Venus, Mars,
Appeared to wax and wane from month to
month
As though they moved, now near, now far, from earth.
Earth
could not be their centre. Was the sun
Their sovran lord then, as
Pythagoras held?
Was this great earth, so 'stablished, so secure,
A
planet also? Did it also move
Around the sun? If this were true, my
friends,
No revolution in this world's affairs,
Not that blind