Newton

I     If I saw farther, 'twas because I stood     On giant shoulders," wrote the king of thought,     Too proud of his great line to slight the toils     Of his forebears. He turned to their dim past,     Their fading victories and their fond defeats,     And knelt as at an altar, drawing all     Their strengths into his own; and so went forth     With all their glory shining in his face,     To win new victories for the age to come.     So, where Copernicus had destroyed the dream     We called our world; where Galileo watched     Those ancient firmaments melt, a thin blue smoke     Into a vaster night; where Kepler heard     Only stray fragments, isolated chords     Of that tremendous music which should bind     All things anew in one, Newton arose     And carried on their fire.                                  Around him reeled     Through lingering fumes of hate and clouds of doubt,     Lit by the afterglow of the Civil War,     The dissolute throngs of that Walpurgis night     Where all the cynical spirits that deny     Danced with the vicious lusts that drown the soul     In flesh too gross for Circe or her swine.     But, in his heart, he heard one instant voice.     "On with the torch once more, make all things new,     Build the new heaven and earth, and save the world."     Ah, but the infinite patience, the long months     Lavished on tasks that, to the common eye,     Were insignificant, never to be crowned     With great results, or even with earth's rewards.     Could Rembrandt but have painted him, in those hours     Making his first analysis of light     Alone, there, in his darkened Cambridge room     At Trinity! Could he have painted, too,     The secret glow, the mystery, and the power,     The sense of all the thoughts and unseen spires     That soared to heaven around him!                         He stood there,     Obscure, unknown, the shadow of a man     In darkness, like a grey dishevelled ghost,     --Bare-throated, down at heel, his last night's supper     Littering his desk, untouched; his glimmering face,     Under his tangled hair, intent and still,--     Preparing our new universe.             He caught     The sunbeam striking through that bullet-hole     In his closed shutter--a round white spot of light     Upon a small dark screen.                                 He interposed     A prism of glass. He saw the sunbeam break     And spread upon the screen its rainbow band     Of disentangled colours, all in scale     Like notes in music; first, the violet ray,     Then indigo, trembling softly into blue;     Then green and yellow, quivering side by side;     Then orange, mellowing richly into red.     Then, in the screen, he made a small, round hole     Like to the first; and through it passed once more     Each separate coloured ray. He let it strike     Another prism of glass, and saw each hue     Bent at a different angle from its path,     The red the least, the violet ray the most;     But all in scale and order, all precise     As notes in music. Last, he took a lens,     And, passing through it all those coloured rays,     Drew them together again, remerging all     On that dark screen, in one white spot of light.     So, watching, testing, proving, he resolved     The seeming random glories of our day     Into a constant harmony, and found     How in the whiteness of the sunlight sleep     Compounded, all the colours of the world.     He saw how raindrops in the clouds of heaven     Breaking the light, revealed that sevenfold arch     Of colours, ranged as on his own dark screen,     Though now they spanned the mountains and wild seas.     Then, where that old-world order had gone down     Beneath a darker deluge, he beheld     Gleams of the great new order and recalled     --Fraught with new meaning and a deeper hope--     That covenant which God made with all mankind     Throughout all generations: I will set     My bow in the cloud, that henceforth ye may know     How deeper than the wreckage of your dreams     Abides My law, in beauty and in power.     II     Yet for that exquisite balance of the mind,     He, too, must pay the price. He stood alone     Bewildered, at the sudden assault of fools     On this, his first discovery.                 "I have lost     The most substantial blessing of my quiet     To follow a vain shadow.                              I would fain     Attempt no more. So few can understand,     Or read one thought. So many are ready at once     To swoop and sting. Indeed I would withdraw     For ever from philosophy." So he wrote     In grief, the mightiest mind of that new age.     Let those who'd stone the Roman Curia     For all the griefs that Galileo knew     Remember the dark hours that well-nigh quenched     The splendour of that spirit. He could not sleep.     Yet, with that patience of the God in man     That still must seek the Splendour whence it came,     Through midnight hours of mockery and defeat,     In loneliness and hopelessness and tears,     He laboured on. He had no power to see     How, after many years, when he was dead,     Out of this new discovery men should make     An instrument to explore the farthest stars     And, delicately dividing their white rays,     Divine what metals in their beauty burned,     Extort red secrets from the heart of Mars,     Or measure the molten iron in the sun.     He bent himself to nearer, lowlier, tasks;     And seeing, first, that those deflected rays,     Though it were only by the faintest bloom     Of colour, imperceptible to our eyes,     Must dim the vision of Galileo's glass,     He made his own new weapon of the sky,--     That first reflecting telescope which should hold     In its deep mirror, as in a breathless pool     The undistorted image of a star.     III     In that deep night where Galileo groped     Like a blind giant in dreams to find what power     Held moons and planets to their constant road     Through vastness, ordered like a moving fleet;     What law so married them that they could not clash     Or sunder, but still kept their rhythmic pace     As if those ancient tales indeed were true     And some great angel helmed each gliding sphere;     Many had sought an answer. Many had caught     Gleams of the truth; and yet, as when a torch     Is waved above a multitude at night,     And shows wild streams of faces, all confused,     But not the single law that knits them all     Into an ordered nation, so our skies     For all those fragmentary glimpses, whirled     In chaos, till one eagle-spirit soared,     Found the one law that bound them all in one,     And through that awful unity upraised     The soul to That which made and guides them all.     Did Newton, dreaming in his orchard there     Beside the dreaming Witham, see the moon     Burn like a huge gold apple in the boughs     And wonder why should moons not fall like fruit?     Or did he see as those old tales declare     (Those fairy-tales that gather form and fire     Till, in one jewel, they pack the whole bright world)     A ripe fruit fall from some immortal tree     Of knowledge, while he wondered at what height     Would this earth-magnet lose its darkling power?     Would not the fruit fall earthward, though it grew     High o'er the hills as yonder brightening cloud?     Would not the selfsame power that plucked the fruit     Draw the white moon, then, sailing in the blue?     Then, in one flash, as light and song are born,     And the soul wakes, he saw it--this dark earth     Holding the moon that else would fly through space     To her sure orbit, as a stone is held     In a whirled sling; and, by the selfsame power,     Her sister planets guiding all their moons;     While, exquisitely balanced and controlled     In one vast system, moons and planets wheeled     Around one sovran majesty, the sun.     IV     Light and more light! The spark from heaven was there,     The flash of that reintegrating fire     Flung from heaven's altars, where all light is born,     To feed the imagination of mankind     With vision, and reveal all worlds in one.     But let no dreamer dream that his great work     Sprang, armed, like Pallas from the Thunderer's brain.     With infinite patience he must test and prove     His vision now, in those clear courts of Truth     Whose absolute laws (bemocked by shallower minds     As less than dreams, less than the faithless faith     That fears the Truth, lest Truth should slay the dream)     Are man's one guide to his transcendent heaven;     For there's no wandering splendour in the soul,     But in the highest heaven of all is one     With absolute reality. None can climb     Back to that Fount of Beauty but through pain.     Long, long he toiled, comparing first the curves     Traced by the cannon-ball as it soared and fell     With that great curving road across the sky     Traced by the sailing moon.             Was earth a loadstone     Holding them to their paths by that dark force     Whose mystery men have cloaked beneath a name?     Yet, when he came to test and prove, he found     That all the great deflections of the moon,     Her shining cadences from the path direct,     Were utterly inharmonious with the law     Of that dark force, at such a distance acting,     Measured from earth's own centre....     For three long years, Newton withheld his hope     Until that day when light was brought from France,     New light, new hope, in one small glistening fact,     Clear-cut as any diamond; and to him     Loaded with all significance, like the point     Of light that shows where constellations burn.     Picard in France--all glory to her name     Who is herself a light among all lands--     Had measured earth's diameter once more     With exquisite precision.                                 To the throng,     Those few corrected ciphers, his results,     Were less than nothing; yet they changed the world.     For Newton seized them and, with trembling hands,     Began to work his problem out anew.     Then, then, as on the page those figures turned     To hieroglyphs of heaven, and he beheld     The moving moon, with awful cadences     Falling into the path his law ordained,     Even to the foot and second, his hand shook     And dropped the pencil.                             "Work it out for me,"     He cried to those around him; for the weight     Of that celestial music overwhelmed him;     And, on his page, those burning hieroglyphs     Were Thrones and Principalities and Powers...     For far beyond, immeasurably far     Beyond our sun, he saw that river of suns     We call the Milky Way, that glittering host     Powdering the night, each grain of solar blaze     Divided from its neighbour by a gulf     Too wide for thought to measure; each a sun     Huger than ours, with its own fleet of worlds,     Visible and invisible. Those bright throngs     That seemed dispersed like a defeated host     Through blindly wandering skies, now, at the word     Of one great dreamer, height o'er height revealed     Hints of a vaster order, and moved on     In boundless intricacies of harmony     Around one centre, deeper than all suns,     The burning throne of God.     V     He could not sleep. That intellect, whose wings     Dared the cold ultimate heights of Space and Time     Sank, like a wounded eagle, with dazed eyes     Back, headlong through the clouds to throb on earth.     What shaft had pierced him? That which also pierced     His great forebears--the hate of little men.     They flocked around him, and they flung their dust     Into the sensitive eyes and laughed to see     How dust could blind them.                                  If one prickling grain     Could so put out his vision and so torment     That delicate brain, what weakness! How the mind     That seemed to dwarf us, dwindles! Is he mad?     So buzzed the fools, whose ponderous mental wheels     Nor dust, nor grit, nor stones, nor rocks could irk     Even for an instant.                      Newton could not sleep,     But all that careful malice could design     Was blindly fostered by well-meaning folly,     And great sane folk like Mr. Samuel Pepys     Canvassed his weakness and slept sound all night.     For little Samuel with his rosy face     Came chirping into a coffee-house one day     Like a plump robin, "Sir, the unhappy state     Of Mr. Isaac Newton grieves me much.     Last week I had a letter from him, filled     With strange complainings, very curious hints,     Such as, I grieve to say, are common signs     --I have observed it often--of worse to come.     He said that he could neither eat nor sleep     Because of all the embroilments he was in,     Hinting at nameless enemies. Then he begged     My pardon, very strangely. I believe     Physicians would confirm me in my fears.     'Tis very sad.... Only last night, I found     Among my papers certain lines composed     By--whom d'you think?--My lord of Halifax     (Or so dear Mrs. Porterhouse assured me)     Expressing, sir, the uttermost satisfaction     In Mr. Newton's talent. Sir, he wrote     Answering the charge that science would put out     The light of beauty, these very handsome lines:      'When Newton walked by Witham stream             There fell no chilling shade         To blight the drifting naiad's dream             Or make her garland fade.         The mist of sun was not less bright             That crowned Urania's hair.         He robbed it of its colder light,             But left the rainbow there.'     They 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     Which only rank can give.                                 'Tis very sad     That one so nobly praised should--well, no matter!--     I am told, sir, that these troubles all began     At Cambridge, when his manuscripts were burned.     He had been working, in his curious way,     All through the night; and, in the morning greyness     Went down to chapel, leaving on his desk     A lighted candle. You can imagine it,--     A sadly sloven altar to his Muse,     Littered with papers, cups, and greasy plates     Of untouched food. I am told that he would eat     His Monday's breakfast, sir, on Tuesday morning,     Such was his absent way!                              When he returned,     He found that Diamond (his little dog     Named Diamond, for a black patch near his tail)     Had overturned the candle. All his work     Was burned to ashes.                      It struck him to the quick,     Though, when his terrier fawned about his feet,     He showed no anger. He was heard to say,     'O Diamond, Diamond, little do you know...'     But, from that hour, ah well, we'll say no more."     Halley was there that day, and spoke up sharply,     "Sir, there are hints and hints! Do you mean more?"     --"I do, sir," chirruped Samuel, mightily pleased     To find all eyes, for once, on his fat face.     "I fear his intellects are disordered, sir."     --"Good! That's an answer! I can deal with that.     But tell me first," quoth Halley, "why he wrote     That letter, a week ago, to Mr. Pepys."     --"Why, sir," piped Samuel, innocent of the trap,     "I had an argument in this coffee-house     Last week, with certain gentlemen, on the laws     Of chance, and what fair hopes a man might have     Of throwing six at dice. I happened to say     That Mr. Isaac Newton was my friend,     And promised I would sound him."                      "Sir," said Halley,     "You'll pardon me, but I forgot to tell you     I heard, a minute since, outside these doors,     A very modish woman of the town,     Or else a most delicious lady of fashion,     A melting creature with a bold black eye,     A bosom like twin doves; and, sir, a mouth     Like a Turk's dream of Paradise. She cooed,     'Is Mr. Pepys within?' I greatly fear     That they denied you to her!"                 Off ran Pepys!     "A hint's a hint," laughed Halley, "and so to bed.     But, as for Isaac Newton, let me say,     Whatever his embroilments were, he solved     With just one hour of thought, not long ago     The problem set by Leibnitz as a challenge     To all of Europe. He published his result     Anonymously, but Leibnitz, when he saw it,     Cried out, at once, old enemy as he was,     'That's Newton, none but Newton! From this claw     I know the old lion, in his midnight lair.'"     VI     (Sir Isaac Newton writes to Mrs. Vincent at Woolthorpe.)     Your letter, on my eightieth birthday, wakes     Memories, like violets, in this London gloom.     You have never failed, for more than three-score years     To send these annual greetings from the haunts     Where you and I were boy and girl together.     A day must come-it cannot now be far--     When I shall have no power to thank you for them,     So let me tell you now that, all my life,     They have come to me with healing in their wings     Like birds from home, birds from the happy woods     Above the Witham, where you walked with me     When you and I were young.                                  Do you remember     Old Barley--how he tried to teach us drawing?     He found some promise, I believe, in you,     But quite despaired of me.                                  I treasure all     Those little sketches that you sent to me     Each Christmas, carrying each some glimpse of home.     There's one I love that shows the narrow lane     Behind the schoolhouse, where I had that bout     Of schoolboy fisticuffs. I have never known     More pleasure, I believe, than when I beat     That black-haired bully and won, for my reward,     Those April smiles from you.              I see you still     Standing among the fox-gloves in the hedge;     And just behind you, in the field, I know     There was a patch of aromatic flowers,--     Rest-harrow, was it? Yes; their tangled roots     Pluck at the harrow; halt the sharp harrow of thought,     Even in old age. I never breathe their scent     But I am back in boyhood, dreaming there     Over some book, among the diligent bees,     Until you join me, and we dream together.     They called me lazy, then. Oddly enough     It was that fight that stirred my mind to beat     My bully at his books, and head the school;     Blind rivalry, at first. By such fond tricks     The invisible Power that shapes us--not ourselves--     Punishes, teaches, leads us gently on     Like children, all our lives, until we grasp     A sudden meaning and are born, through death     Into full knowledge that our Guide was Love.     Another picture shows those woods of ours,     Around whose warm dark edges in the spring     Primroses, knots of living sunlight, woke;     And, always, you, their radiant shepherdess     From Elfland, lead them rambling back for me,     The dew still clinging to their golden fleece,     Through these grey memory-mists.                      Another shows     My old sun-dial. You say that it is known     As "Isaac's dial" still. I took great pains     To set it rightly. If it has not shifted     'Twill mark the time long after I am gone;     Not like those curious water-clocks I made.     Do you remember? They worked well at first;     But the least particles in the water clogged     The holes through which it dripped; and so, one day,     We two came home so late that we were sent     Supperless to our beds; and suffered much     From the world's harshness, as we thought it then.     Would God that we might taste that harshness now.     I cannot send you what you've sent to me;     And so I wish you'll never thank me more     For those poor gifts I have sent from year to year.     I send another, and hope that you can use it     To buy yourself those comforts which you need     This Christmas-time.                      How strange it is to wake     And find that half a century has gone by,     With all our endless youth.             They talk to me     Of my discoveries, prate of undying fame     Too late to help me. Anything I achieved     Was done through work and patience; and the men     Who sought quick roads to glory for themselves     Were capable of neither. So I won     Their hatred, and it often hampered me,     Because it vexed my mind.                                 This world of ours     Would give me all, now I have ceased to want it;     For I sit here, alone, a sad old man,     Sipping his orange-water, nodding to sleep,     Not caring any more for aught they say,     Not caring any more for praise or blame;     But dreaming-things we dreamed of, long ago,     In childhood.         You and I had laughed away     That boy and girl affair. We were too poor     For anything but laughter.                                  I am old;     And you, twice wedded and twice widowed, still     Retain, through all your nearer joys and griefs,     The old affection. Vaguely our blind old hands     Grope for each other in this growing dark     And deepening loneliness,--to say "good-bye."     Would that my words could tell you all my heart;     But even my words grow old.             Perhaps these lines,     Written not long ago, may tell you more.     I have no skill in verse, despite the praise     Your kindness gave me, once; but since I wrote     Thinking of you, among the woods of home,     My heart was in them. Let them turn to yours:         Give me, for friends, my own true folk         Who kept the very word they spoke;             Whose quiet prayers, from day to day,             Have brought the heavens about my way.         Not those whose intellectual pride         Would quench the only lights that guide;             Confuse the lines 'twixt good and ill             Then throne their own capricious will;         Not those whose eyes in mockery scan         The simpler hopes and dreams of man;             Not those keen wits, so quick to hurt,             So swift to trip you in the dirt.         Not those who'd pluck your mystery out,         Yet never saw your last redoubt;             Whose cleverness would kill the song             Dead at your heart, then prove you wrong.         Give me those eyes I used to know         Where thoughts like angels come and go;          --Not glittering eyes, nor dimmed by books,             But eyes through which the deep soul looks.         Give me the quiet hands and face         That never strove for fame and place;             The soul whose love, so many a day             Has brought the heavens about my way.     VII     Was it a dream, that low dim-lighted room     With that dark periwigged phantom of Dean Swift     Writing, beside a fire, to one he loved,--     Beautiful Catherine Barton, once the light     Of Newton's house, and his half-sister's child?     Yes, Catherine Barton, I am brave enough     To face this pale, unhappy, wistful ghost     Of our departed friendship.             It was I     Savage and mad, a snarling kennel of sins,     "Your Holiness," as you called me, with that smile     Which even your ghost would quietly turn on me--     Who raised it up. It has no terrors, dear.     And I shall never lay it while I live.     You write to me. You think I have the power     To shield the fame of Newton from a lie.     Poor little ghost! You think I hold the keys     Not only of Parnassus, then, but hell.     There is a tale abroad that Newton owed     His public office to Lord Halifax,     Your secret lover. Coarseness, as you know,     Is my peculiar privilege. I'll be plain,     And let them wince who are whispering in the dark.     They are hinting that he gained his public post     Through you, his flesh and blood; and that he knew     You were his patron's mistress!                     Yes, I know     The coffee-house that hatched it--to be scotched,     Nay, killed, before one snuff-box could say "snap,"     Had not one cold malevolent face been there     Listening,--that crystal-minded lover of truth,     That lucid enemy of all lies,--Voltaire.     I am told he is doing much to spread the light     Of Newton's great discoveries, there, in France.     There's little fear that France, whose clear keen eyes     Have missed no morning in the realm of thought,     Would fail to see it; and smaller need to lift     A brand from hell to illume the light from heaven.     You fear he'll print his lie. No doubt of that.     I can foresee the phrase, as Halley saw     The advent of his comet,--jolie niece,     Assez amiable, ... then he'll give your name     As Madame Conduit, adding just that spice     Of infidelity that the dates admit     To none but these truth-lovers. It will be best     Not to enlighten him, or he'll change his tale     And make an answer difficult. Let him print     This truth as he conceives it, and you'll need     No more defence.     All history then shall damn his death-cold lie     And show you for the laughing child you were     When Newton won his office.             For yourself     You say you have no fear. Your only thought     Is that they'll soil his fame. Ah yes, they'll try,     But they'll not hurt it. For all time to come     It stands there, firm as marble and as pure.     They can do nothing that the sun and rain     Will not erase at last. Not even Voltaire     Can hurt that noble memory. Think of him     As of a viper writhing at the base     Of some great statue. Let the venomous tongue     Flicker against that marble as it may     It cannot wound it.                     I am far more grieved     For you, who sit there wondering now, too late,     If it were some suspicion, some dark hint     Newton had heard that robbed him of his sleep,     And almost broke his mind up. I recall     How the town buzzed that Newton had gone mad.     You copy me that sad letter which he wrote     To Locke, wherein he begs him to forgive     The hard words he had spoken, thinking Locke     Had tried to embroil him, as he says, with women;     A piteous, humble letter.                                 Had he heard     Some hint of scandal that he could not breathe     To you, because he honoured you too well?     I cannot tell. His mind was greatly troubled     With other things. At least, you need not fear     That Newton thought it true. He walked aloof,     Treading a deeper stranger world than ours.     Have you not told me how he would forget     Even to eat and drink, when he was wrapt     In those miraculous new discoveries     And, under this wild maze of shadow and sun     Beheld--though not the Master Player's hand--     The keys from which His organ music rolls,     Those visible symphonies of wild cloud and light     Which clothe the invisible world for mortal eyes.     I have heard that Leibnitz whispered to the court     That Newton was an "atheist." Leibnitz knew     His audience. He could stoop to it.                             Fools have said     That knowledge drives out wonder from the world;     They'll say it still, though all the dust's ablaze     With miracles at their feet; while Newton's laws     Foretell that knowledge one day shall be song,     And those whom Truth has taken to her heart     Find that it beats in music.              Even this age     Has glimmerings of it. Newton never saw     His own full victory; but at least he knew     That all the world was linked in one again;     And, if men found new worlds in years to come,     These too must join the universal song.     That's why true poets love him; and you'll find     Their love will cancel all that hate can do.     They are the sentinels of the House of Fame;     And that quick challenging couplet from the pen     Of Alexander Pope is answer enough     To all those whisperers round the outer doors.     There's Addison, too. The very spirit and thought     Of Newton moved to music when he wrote     The Spacious Firmament. Some keen-eyed age to come     Will say, though Newton seldom wrote a verse,     That music was his own and speaks his faith.     And, last, for those who doubt his faith in God     And man's immortal destiny, there remains     The granite monument of his own great work,     That dark cathedral of man's intellect,     The vast "Principia," pointing to the skies,     Wherein our intellectual king proclaimed     The task of science,--through this wilderness     Of Time and Space and false appearances,     To make the path straight from effect to cause,     Until we come to that First Cause of all,     The Power, above, beyond the blind machine,     The Primal Power, the originating Power,     Which cannot be mechanical. He affirmed it     With absolute certainty. Whence arises all     This order, this unbroken chain of law,     This human will, this death-defying love?     Whence, but from some divine transcendent Power,     Not less, but infinitely more than these,     Because it is their Fountain and their Guide.     Fools in their hearts have said, "Whence comes this Power,     Why throw the riddle back this one stage more?"     And Newton, from a height above all worlds     Answered and answers still:             "This universe     Exists, and by that one impossible fact     Declares itself a miracle; postulates     An infinite Power within itself, a Whole     Greater than any part, a Unity     Sustaining all, binding all worlds in one.     This is the mystery, palpable here and now.     'Tis not the lack of links within the chain     From cause to cause, but that the chain exists.     That's the unfathomable mystery,     The one unquestioned miracle that we know,     Implying every attribute of God,     The ultimate, absolute, omnipresent Power,     In its own being, deep and high as heaven.     But men still trace the greater to the less,     Account for soul with flesh and dreams with dust,     Forgetting in their manifold world the One,     In whom for every splendour shining here     Abides an equal power behind the veil.     Was the eye contrived by blindly moving atoms,     Or the still-listening ear fulfilled with music     By forces without knowledge of sweet sounds?     Are nerves and brain so sensitively fashioned     That they convey these pictures of the world     Into the very substance of our life,     While That from which we came, the Power that made us,     Is drowned in blank unconsciousness of all?     Does it not from the things we know appear     That there exists a Being, incorporeal,     Living, intelligent, who in infinite space,     As in His infinite sensory, perceives     Things in themselves, by His immediate presence     Everywhere? Of which things, we see no more     Than images only, flashed through nerves and brain     To our small sensories?                             What is all science then     But pure religion, seeking everywhere     The true commandments, and through many forms     The eternal power that binds all worlds in one?     It is man's age-long struggle to draw near     His Maker, learn His thoughts, discern His law,--     A boundless task, in whose infinitude,     As in the unfolding light and law of love.     Abides our hope, and our eternal joy.     I know not how my work may seem to others--"     So wrote our mightiest mind--"But to myself     I seem a child that wandering all day long     Upon the sea-shore, gathers here a shell,     And there a pebble, coloured by the wave,     While the great ocean of truth, from sky to sky     Stretches before him, boundless, unexplored."     He has explored it now, and needs of me     Neither defence nor tribute. His own work     Remains his monument He rose at last so near     The Power divine that none can nearer go;     None in this age! To carry on his fire     We must await a mightier age to come.