Kepler

John Kepler, from the chimney corner, watched     His wife Susannah, with her sleeves rolled back     Making a salad in a big blue bowl.     The thick tufts of his black rebellious hair     Brushed into sleek submission; his trim beard     Snug as the soft round body of a thrush     Between the white wings of his fan-shaped ruff     (His best, with the fine lace border) spoke of guests     Expected; and his quick grey humorous eyes,     His firm red whimsical pleasure-loving mouth,     And all those elvish twinklings of his face,     Were lit with eagerness. Only between his brows,     Perplexed beneath that subtle load of dreams,     Two delicate shadows brooded.                 "What does it mean?     Sir Henry Wotton's letter breathed a hint     That Italy is prohibiting my book,"     He muttered. "Then, if Austria damns it too,     Susannah mine, we may be forced to choose     Between the truth and exile. When he comes,     He'll tell me more. Ambassadors, I suppose,     Can only write in cipher, while our world     Is steered to heaven by murderers and thieves;     But, if he'd wrapped his friendly warnings up     In a verse or two, I might have done more work     These last three days, eh, Sue?"                      "Look, John," said she,     "What beautiful hearts of lettuce! Tell me now     How shall I mix it? Will your English guest     Turn up his nose at dandelion leaves     As crisp and young as these? They've just the tang     Of bitterness in their milk that gives a relish     And makes all sweet; and that's philosophy, John.     Now--these spring onions! Would his Excellency     Like sugared rose-leaves better?"                         "He's a poet,     Not an ambassador only, so I think     He'll like a cottage salad."              "A poet, John!     I hate their arrogant little insect ways!     I'll put a toadstool in."                                 "Poets, dear heart,     Can be divided into two clear kinds,--     One that, by virtue of a half-grown brain,     Lives in a silly world of his own making,     A bubble, blown by himself, in which he flits     And dizzily bombinates, chanting 'I, I, I,'     For there is nothing in the heavens above     Or the earth, or hell beneath, but goes to swell     His personal pronoun. Bring him some dreadful news     His dearest friend is burned to death,--You'll see     The monstrous insect strike an attitude     And shape himself into one capital I,     A rubric, with red eyes. You'll see him use     The coffin for his pedestal, hear him mouth     His 'I, I, I' instructing haggard grief     Concerning his odd ego. Does he chirp     Of love, it's 'I, I, I' Narcissus, love,     Myself, Narcissus, imaged in those eyes;     For all the love-notes that he sounds are made     After the fashion of passionate grasshoppers,     By grating one hind-leg across another.     Nor does he learn to sound that mellower 'You,'     Until his bubble bursts and leaves him drowned,     An insect in a soap-sud.     But there's another kind, whose mind still moves     In vital concord with the soul of things;     So that it thinks in music, and its thoughts     Pulse into natural song. A separate voice,     And yet caught up by the surrounding choirs,     There, in the harmonies of the Universe,     Losing himself, he saves his soul alive."     "John, I'm afraid!"--                         "Afraid of what, Susannah?"--     "Afraid to put those Ducklings on to roast.     Your friend may miss his road; and, if he's late,     My little part of the music will be spoiled."--     "He won't, Susannah. Bad poets are always late.     Good poets, at times, delay a note or two;     But all the great are punctual as the sun.     What's that? He's early! That's his knock, I think!"--     "The Lord have mercy, John, there's nothing ready!     Take him into your study and talk to him,     Talk hard. He's come an hour before his time;     And I've to change my dress. I'll into the kitchen!"     Then, in a moment, all the cottage rang     With greetings; hand grasped hand; his Excellency     Forgot the careful prologue he'd prepared,     And made an end of mystery. He had brought     A message from his wisdom-loving king     Who, hearing of new menaces to the light     In Europe, urged the illustrious Kepler now     To make his home in England. There, his thought     And speech would both be free.                  "My friend," said Wotton,     "I have moved in those old strongholds of the night,     And heard strange mutterings. It is not many years     Since Bruno burned. There's trouble brewing too,     For one you know, I think,--the Florentine     Who made that curious optic tube."--                              "You mean     The man at Padua, Galileo?"--                 "Yes."     "They will not dare or need. Proof or disproof     Rests with their eyes."--                                 "Kepler, have you not heard     Of those who, fifteen hundred years ago,     Had eyes and would not see? Eyes quickly close     When souls prefer the dark."--     "So be it. Other and younger eyes will see.     Perhaps that's why God gave the young a spice     Of devilry. They'll go look, while elders gasp;     And, when the Devil and Truth go hand in hand,     God help their enemies. You will send my thanks,     My grateful thanks, Sir Henry, to your king.     To-day I cannot answer you. I must think.     It would be very difficult My wife     Would find it hard to leave her native land.     Say nothing yet before her."              Then, to hide     Their secret from Susannah, Kepler poured     His mind out, and the world's dead branches bloomed.     For, when he talked, another spring began     To which our May was winter; and, in the boughs     Of his delicious thoughts, like feathered choirs,     Bits of old rhyme, scraps from the Sabine farm,     Celestial phrases from the Shepherd King,     And fluttering morsels from Catullus sang.     Much was fantastic. All was touched with light     That only genius knows to steal from heaven.     He spoke of poetry, as the "flowering time     Of knowledge," called it "thought in passionate tune     With those great rhythms that steer the moon and sun;     Thought in such concord with the soul of things     That it can only move, like tides and stars,     And man's own beating heart, and the wings of birds,     In law, whose service only sets them free."     Therefore it often leaps to the truth we seek,     Clasping it, as a lover clasps his bride     In darkness, ere the sage can light his lamp.     And so, in music, men might find the road     To truth, at many a point, where sages grope.     One day, a greater Plato would arise     To write a new philosophy, he said,     Showing how music is the golden clue     To all the windings of the world's dark maze.     Himself had used it, partly proved it, too,     In his own book,--the Harmonies of the World.     'All that the years discover points one way     To this great ordered harmony," he said,     "Revealed on earth by music. Planets move     In subtle accord like notes of one great song     Audible only to the Artificer,     The Eternal Artist. There's no grief, no pain,     But music--follow it simply as a clue,     A microcosmic pattern of the whole--     Can show you, somewhere in its golden scheme,     The use of all such discords; and, at last,     Their exquisite solution. Then darkness breaks     Into diviner light, love's agony climbs     Through death to life, and evil builds up heaven.     Have you not heard, in some great symphony,     Those golden mathematics making clear     The victory of the soul? Have you not heard     The very heavens opening?                                 Do those fools     Who thought me an infidel then, still smile at me     For trying to read the stars in terms of song,     Discern their orbits, measure their distances,     By musical proportions? Let them smile,     My folly at least revealed those three great laws;     Gave me the golden vases of the Egyptians,     To set in the great new temple of my God     Beyond the bounds of Egypt.             They will forget     My methods, doubtless, as the years go by,     And the world's wisdom shuts its music out.     The dust will gather on all my harmonies;     Or scholars turn my pages listlessly,     Glance at the musical phrases, and pass on,     Not troubling even to read one Latin page.     Yet they'll accept those great results as mine.     I call them mine. How can I help exulting,     Who climbed my ladder of music to the skies     And found, by accident, let them call it so,     Or by the inspiration of that Power     Which built His world of music, those three laws:--     First, how the speed of planets round the sun     Bears a proportion, beautifully precise     As music, to their silver distances;     Next, that although they seem to swerve aside     From those plain circles of old Copernicus     Their paths were not less rhythmical and exact,     But followed always that most exquisite curve     In its most perfect form, the pure ellipse;     Third, that although their speed from point to point     Appeared to change, their radii always moved     Through equal fields of space in equal times.     Was this my infidelity, was this     Less full of beauty, less divine in truth,     Than their dull chaos? You, the poet will know     How, as those dark perplexities grew clear,     And old anomalous discords changed to song,     My whole soul bowed and cried, Almighty God     These are Thy thoughts, I am thinking after Thee!     I hope that Tycho knows. I owed so much     To Tycho Brahe; for it was he who built     The towers from which I hailed those three great laws.     How strange and far away it all seems now.     The thistles grow upon that little isle     Where Tycho's great Uraniborg once was.     Yet, for a few sad years, before it fell     Into decay and ruin, there was one     Who crept about its crumbling corridors,     And lit the fire of memory on its hearth."--     Wotton looked quickly up, "I think I have heard     Something of that. You mean poor Jeppe, his dwarf.     Fynes Moryson, at the Mermaid Inn one night     Showed a most curious manuscript, a scrawl     On yellow parchment, crusted here and there     With sea-salt, or the salt of those thick tears     Creatures like Jeppe, the crooked dwarf, could weep.     It had been found, clasped in a crooked hand,     Under the cliffs of Wheen, a crooked hand     That many a time had beckoned to passing ships,     Hoping to find some voyager who would take     A letter to its master.                             The sailors laughed     And jeered at him, till Jeppe threw stones at them.     And now Jeppe, too, was dead, and one who knew     Fynes Moryson, had found him, and brought home     That curious crooked scrawl. Fynes Englished it     Out of its barbarous Danish. Thus it ran:     'Master, have you forgotten Jeppe, your dwarf,     Who used to lie beside the big log-fire     And feed from your own hand? The hall is dark,     There are no voices now,--only the wind     And the sea-gulls crying round Uraniborg.     I too am crying, Master, even I,     Because there is no fire upon the hearth,     No light in any window. It is night,     And all the faces that I knew are gone.     Master, I watched you leaving us. I saw     The white sails dwindling into sea-gull's wings,     Then melting into foam, and all was dark.     I lay among the wild flowers on the cliff     And dug my nails into the stiff white chalk     And called you, Tycho Brahe. You did not hear;     But gulls and jackdaws, wheeling round my head,     Mocked me with Tycho Brahe, and Tycho Brahe!     You were a great magician, Tycho Brahe;     And, now that they have driven you away,     I, that am only Jeppe,--the crooked dwarf,     You used to laugh at for his matted hair,     And head too big and heavy--take your pen     Here in your study. I will write it down     And send it by a sailor to the King     Of Scotland, and who knows, the mouse that gnawed     The lion free, may save you, Tycho Brahe.'"     "He is free now," said Kepler, "had he lived     He would have sent for Jeppe to join him there     At Prague. But death forestalled him, and your King.     The years in which he watched that planet Mars,     His patient notes and records, all were mine;     And, mark you, had he clipped or trimmed one fact     By even a hair's-breadth, so that his results     Made a pure circle of that planet's path     It might have baffled us for an age and drowned     All our new light in darkness. But he held     To what he saw. He might so easily,     So comfortably have said, 'My instruments     Are crude and fallible. In so fine a point     Eyes may have erred, too. Why not acquiesce?     Why mar the tune, why dislocate a world,     For one slight clash of seeming fact with faith?'     But no, though stars might swerve, he held his course,     Recording only what his eyes could see     Until death closed them.                              Then, to his results,     I added mine and saw, in one wild gleam,     Strange as the light of day to one born blind,     A subtler concord ruling them and heard     Profounder tones of harmony resolve     Those broken melodies into song again."--     "Faintly and far away, I, too, have seen     In music, and in verse, that golden clue     Whereof you speak," said Wotton. "In all true song,     There is a hidden logic. Even the rhyme     That, in bad poets, wrings the neck of thought,     Is like a subtle calculus to the true,     An instrument of discovery. It reveals     New harmonies, new analogies. It links     Far things and near, not in unnatural chains,     But in those true accords which still escape     The plodding reason, yet unify the world.     I caught some glimpses of this mystic power     In verses of your own, that elegy     On Tycho, and that great quatrain of yours--     I cannot quite recall the Latin words,     But made it roughly mine in words like these:     'I know that I am dust, and daily die;         Yet, as I trace those rhythmic spheres at night,     I stand before the Thunderer's throne on high         And feast on nectar in the halls of light.'     My version lacks the glory of your lines     But..."                     "Mine too was a version,"         Kepler laughed,     "Turned into Latin from old Ptolemy's Greek;     For, even in verse, half of the joy, I think,     Is just to pass the torch from hand to hand     An undimmed splendour. But, last night, I tried     Some music all my own. I had a dream     That I was wandering in some distant world.     I have often dreamed it Once it was the moon.     I wrote that down in prose. When I am dead,     It may be printed. This was a fairer dream:     For I was walking in a far-off spring     Upon the planet, Venus. Only verse     Could spread true wings for that delicious world;     And so I wrote it--for no eyes but mine,     Or 'twould be seized on, doubtless, as fresh proof     Of poor old Kepler's madness."--                      "Let me hear,     Madman to madman; for I, too, write verse."     Then Kepler, in a rhythmic murmur, breathed     His rich enchanted memories of that dream:     "Beauty burned before me          Swinging a lanthorn through that fragrant night.      I followed a distant singing,          And a dreaming light      How she led me, I cannot tell          To that strange world afar,      Nor how I walked, in that wild glen          Upon the sunset star.      Winged creatures floated          Under those rose-red boughs of violet bloom,      With delicate forms unknown on Earth          'Twixt irised plume and plume;      Human-hearted, angel-eyed,          And crowned with unknown flowers;      For nothing in that enchanted world          Followed the way of ours.      Only I saw that Beauty,          On Hesper, as on earth, still held command;      And though, as one in slumber,          I roamed that radiant land,      With all these earth-born senses sealed          To what the Hesperians knew,      The faithful lanthorn of her law          Was mine on Hesper too.      Then, half at home with wonder,          I saw strange flocks of flowers like birds take flight;      Great trees that burned like opals          To lure their loves at night;      Dark beings that could move in realms          No dream of ours has known.      Till these became as common things          As men account their own.      Yet, when that lanthorn led me          Back to the world where once I thought me wise;      I saw, on this my planet,          What souls, with awful eyes.      Hardly I dared to walk her fields          As in that strange re-birth      I looked on those wild miracles          The birds and flowers of earth."     Silence a moment held them, loth to break     The spell of that strange dream,                      "One proof the more"     Said Wotton at last, "that songs can mount and fly     To truth; for this fantastic vision of yours     Of life in other spheres, awakes in me,     Either that slumbering knowledge of Socrates,     Or some strange premonition that the years     Will prove it true. This music leads us far     From all our creeds, except that faith in law.     Your quest for knowledge--how it rests on that!     How sure the soul is that if truth destroy     The temple, in three days the truth will build     A nobler temple; and that order reigns     In all things. Even your atheist builds his doubt     On that strange faith; destroys his heaven and God     In absolute faith that his own thought is true     To law, God's lanthorn to our stumbling feet;     And so, despite himself, he worships God,     For where true souls are, there are God and heaven."--     "It is an ancient wisdom. Long ago,"     Said Kepler, "under the glittering Eastern sky,     The shepherd king looked up at those great stars,     Those ordered hosts, and cried Caeli narrant     Gloriam Dei!              Though there be some to-day     Who'd ape Lucretius, and believe themselves     Epicureans, little they know of him     Who, even in utter darkness, bowed his head,     To something nobler than the gods of Rome     Reigning beyond the darkness.                 They accept     The law, the music of these ordered worlds;     And straight deny the law's first postulate,     That out of nothingness nothing can be born,     Nor greater things from less. Can music rise     By chance from chaos, as they said that star     In Serpentarius rose? I told them, then,     That when I was a boy, with time to spare,     I played at anagrams. Out of my Latin name     Johannes Keplerus came that sinister phrase     Serpens in akuleo. Struck by this,     I tried again, but trusted it to chance.     I took some playing cards, and wrote on each     One letter of my name. Then I began     To shuffle them; and, at every shuffle, I read     The letters, in their order, as they came,     To see what meaning chance might give to them.     Wotton, the gods and goddesses must have laughed     To see the weeks I lost in studying chance;     For had I scattered those cards into the black     Epicurean eternity, I'll swear     They'd still be playing at leap-frog in the dark,     And show no glimmer of sense. And yet--to hear     Those wittols talk, you'd think you'd but to mix     A bushel of good Greek letters in a sack     And shake them roundly for an age or so,     To pour the Odyssey out.                              At last, I told,     Those disputants what my wife had said. One night     When I was tired and all my mind a-dust     With pondering on their atoms, I was called     To supper, and she placed before me there     A most delicious salad. 'It would appear,'     I thought aloud, 'that if these pewter dishes,     Green hearts of lettuce, tarragon, slips of thyme,     Slices of hard boiled egg, and grains of salt.     With drops of water, vinegar and oil,     Had in a bottomless gulf been flying about     From all eternity, one sure certain day     The sweet invisible hand of Happy Chance     Would serve them as a salad.'                 'Likely enough,'     My wife replied, 'but not so good as mine,     Nor so well dressed.'"                          They laughed. Susannah's voice     Broke in, "I've made a better one. The receipt     Came from the Golden Lion. I have dished     Ducklings and peas and all. Come, John, say grace."