Watchers Of The Sky Part 11

And, last, for those who doubt his faith in G.o.d 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 s.p.a.ce 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 G.o.d, 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 s.p.a.ce, 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-sh.o.r.e, gathers here a sh.e.l.l, 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.

VI

WILLIAM HERSCHEL CONDUCTS

_Was it a dream?--that crowded concert-room In Bath; that sea of ruffles and laced coats; And William Herschel, in his powdered wig, Waiting upon the platform, to conduct His choir and Linley's orchestra? He stood Tapping his music-rest, lost in his own thoughts And (did I hear or dream them?) all were mine:_

My periwig's askew, my ruffle stained With grease from my new telescope!

Ach, to-morrow How Caroline will be vexed, although she grows Almost as bad as I, who cannot leave My work-shop for one evening.

I must give One last recital at St. Margaret's, And then--farewell to music.

Who can lead Two lives at once?

Yet--it has taught me much, Thrown curious lights upon our world, to pa.s.s From one life to another. Much that I took For substance turns to shadow. I shall see No throngs like this again; wring no more praise Out of their hearts; forego that instant joy --Let those who have not known it count it vain-- When human souls at once respond to yours.

Here, on the brink of fortune and of fame, As men account these things, the moment comes When I must choose between them and the stars; And I have chosen.

Handel, good old friend, We part to-night. Hereafter, I must watch That other wand, to which the worlds keep time.

What has decided me? That marvelous night When--ah, how difficult it will be to guide, With all these wonders whirling through my brain!-- After a Pump-room concert I came home Hot-foot, out of the fluttering sea of fans, Coquelicot-ribboned belles and periwigged beaux, To my Newtonian telescope.

The design Was his; but more than half the joy my own, Because it was the work of my own hand, A new one, with an eye six inches wide, Better than even the best that Newton made.

Then, as I turned it on the _Gemini_, And the deep stillness of those constant lights, Castor and Pollux, lucid pilot-stars, Began to calm the fever of my blood, I saw, O, first of all mankind I saw The disk of my new planet gliding there Beyond our tumults, in that realm of peace.

What will they christen it? Ach--not _Herschel_, no!

Nor _Georgium Sidus_, as I once proposed; Although he scarce could lose it, as he lost That world in 'seventy-six.

Indeed, so far From trying to tax it, he has granted me How much?--two hundred golden pounds a year, In the great name of science,--half the cost Of one state-coach, with all those worlds to win!

Well--well--we must be grateful. This mad king Has done far more than all the worldly-wise, Who'll charge even this to madness.

I believe One day he'll have me pardoned for that...crime, When I escaped--deserted, some would say-- From those drill-sergeants in my native land; Deserted drill for music, as I now Desert my music for the orchestral spheres.

No. This new planet is only new to man.

His majesty has done much. Yet, as my friend Declared last night, "Never did monarch buy Honour so cheaply"; and--he has not bought it.

I think that it should bear some ancient name, And wear it like a crown; some deep, dark name, Like _Ura.n.u.s_, known to remoter G.o.ds.

How strange it seems--this buzzing concert-room!

There's Doctor Burney bowing and, behind him, His fox-eyed daughter f.a.n.n.y.

Is it a dream, These crowding midgets, dense as cl.u.s.tering bees In some great bee-skep?

Now, as I lift my wand, A silence grips them, and the strings begin, Throbbing. The faint lights flicker in gusts of sound.

Before me, glimmering like a crescent moon, The dim half circle of the choir awaits Its own appointed time.

Beside me now, Watching my wand, plump and immaculate From buckled shoes to that white bunch of lace Under his chin, the midget tenor rises, Music in hand, a linnet and a king.

The bullfinch ba.s.s, that other emperor, Leans back indifferently, and clears his throat As if to say, "This prelude leads to _Me_!"

While, on their own proud thrones, on either hand, The sumptuously bosomed midget queens, Contralto and soprano, jealously eye Each other's plumage.

Round me the music throbs With an immortal pa.s.sion. I grow aware Of an appalling mystery.... We, this throng Of midgets, playing, listening, tense and still, Are sailing on a midget ball of dust We call our planet; will have sailed through s.p.a.ce Ten thousand leagues before this music ends.

What does it mean? Oh, G.o.d, what _can_ it mean?-- This weird hushed ant-hill with a thousand eyes; These midget periwigs; all those little blurs, Tier over tier, of faces, masks of flesh, Corruptible, hiding each its hopes and dreams, Its tragi-comic dreams.

And all this throng Will be forgotten, mixed with dust, crushed out, Before this book of music is outworn Or that tall organ crumbles. Violins Outlast their players. Other hands may touch That harpsichord; but ere this planet makes Another threescore journeys round its sun, These breathing listeners will have vanished. Whither?

I watch my moving hands, and they grow strange!

What is it moves this body? What am I?

How came I here, a ghost, to hear that voice Of infinite compa.s.sion, far away, Above the throbbing strings, hark! _Comfort ye_...

If 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; taught myself The way to lay one stone upon another, Before I dared to dream that I might build My Holy City of Song. I gave myself To all its branches. How they stared at me, Those men of "sensibility," when I said That algebra, conic sections, fluxions, all Pertained to music. Let them stare again.

Old Kepler knew, by instinct, what I now Desire to learn. I have resolved to leave No tract of heaven unvisited.

To-night --The music carries me back to it again!-- I see beyond this island universe, Beyond our sun, and all those other suns That throng the Milky Way, far, far beyond, A thousand little wisps, faint nebulae, Luminous fans and milky streaks of fire; Some like soft brushes of electric mist Streaming from one bright point; others that spread And branch, like growing systems; others discrete, Keen, ripe, with stars in cl.u.s.ters; others drawn back By central forces into one dense death, Thence to be kindled into fire, reborn, And scattered abroad once more in a delicate spray Faint as the mist by one bright dewdrop breathed At dawn, and yet a universe like our own; Each wisp a universe, a vast galaxy Wide as our night of stars.

The Milky Way In which our sun is drowned, to these would seem Less than to us their faintest drift of haze; Yet we, who are borne on one dark grain of dust Around one indistinguishable spark Of star-mist, lost in one lost feather of light, Can by the strength of our own thought, ascend Through universe after universe; trace their growth Through boundless time, their glory, their decay; And, on the invisible road of law, more firm Than granite, range through all their length and breadth, Their height and depth, past, present and to come.

So, those who follow the great Work-master's law From small things up to great, may one day learn The structure of the heavens, discern the whole Within the part, as men through Love see G.o.d.

Oh, holy night, deep night of stars, whose peace Descends upon the troubled mind like dew, Healing it with the sense of that pure reign Of constant law, enduring through all change; Shall I not, one day, after faithful years, Find that thy heavens are built on music, too, And hear, once more, above thy throbbing worlds This voice of all compa.s.sion, _Comfort ye,--_ Yes--_comfort ye, my people, saith your G.o.d?_

VII

SIR JOHN HERSCHEL REMEMBERS

True type of all, from his own father's hand He caught the fire; and, though he carried it far Into new regions; and, from southern fields Of yellow lupin, added host on host To those bright armies which his father knew, Surely the crowning hour of all his life Was when, his task accomplished, he returned A lonely pilgrim to the twilit shrine Of first beginnings and his father's youth.

There, in the Octagon Chapel, with bared head Grey, honoured for his father and himself, He touched the glimmering keyboard, touched the books Those dear lost hands had touched so long ago.

"Strange that these poor inanimate things outlast The life that used them.

Yes. I should like to try This good old friend of his. You'll leave me here An hour or so?"

His hands explored the stops; And, while the music breathed what else were mute, His mind through many thoughts and memories ranged.

Picture on picture pa.s.sed before him there In living colours, painted on the gloom: Not what the world acclaimed, the great work crowned, But all that went before, the years of toil; The years of infinite patience, hope, despair.

He saw the little house where all began, His father's first resolve to explore the sky, His first defeat, when telescopes were found Too costly for a music-master's purse; And then that dogged and all-conquering will Declaring, "Be it so. I'll make my own, A better than even the best that Newton made."

He saw his first rude telescope--a tube Of pasteboard, with a lens at either end; And then,--that arduous growth to size and power With each new instrument, as his knowledge grew; And, to reward each growth, a deeper heaven.

He saw the good Aunt Caroline's dismay When her trim drawing-room, as by wizardry, turned Into a workshop, where her brother's hands Cut, ground and burnished, hour on aching hour, Month after month, new mirrors of the sky.

Yet, while from dawn to dark her brother moved Around some new-cut mirror, burnishing it, Knowing that if he once removed his hands The surface would be dimmed and must forego Its heaven for ever, her quiet hands would raise Food to his lips; or, with that musical voice Which once--for she, too, offered her sacrifice-- Had promised her fame, she whiled away the hours Reading how, long ago, Aladdin raised The djinns, by burnishing that old battered lamp; Or, from Cervantes, how one crazy soul Tilting at windmills, challenged a purblind world.

He saw her seized at last by that same fire, Burning to help, a sleepless Vestal, dowered With lightning-quickness, rushing from desk to clock, Or measuring distances at dead of night Between the lamp-micrometer and his eyes.

He saw her in mid-winter, hurrying out, A slim shawled figure through the drifted snow, To help him; saw her fall with a stifled cry, Gashing herself upon that buried hook, And struggling up, out of the blood-stained drift, To greet him with a smile.

"For any soldier, This wound," the surgeon muttered, "would have meant Six weeks in hospital."

Not six days for her!

"I am glad these nights were cloudy, and we lost So little," was all she said.