GALILEO

My 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 told me once you would endure the rack

To save my heart one pang. O, save it now!

Last night there came a dreadful word from Rome

For my dear lord and father, summoning him

Before the inquisitors there, to take his trial

At threescore years and ten. There is a threat

Of torture, if his lips will not deny

The truth his eyes have seen.

You know my father,

You know me, too. You never will believe

That he and I are enemies of the faith.

Could I, who put away all earthly love,

Deny the Cross to which I nailed this flesh?

Could he, who, on the night when all those heavens

Opened above us, with their circling worlds,

Knelt with me, crushed beneath that weight of glory,

Forget the Maker of that glory now?

You'll not believe it. Neither would the Church,

Had not his enemies poisoned all the springs

And fountain-heads of truth. It is not Rome

That summons him, but Magini, Sizy, Scheiner,

Lorini, all the blind, pedantic crew

That envy him his fame, and hate his works

For dwarfing theirs.

Must such things always be

When truth is born?

Only five nights ago we walked together,

My father and I, here in the Convent garden;

And, as the dusk turned everything to dreams,

We dreamed together of his work well done

And happiness to be. We did not dream

That even then, muttering above his book,

His enemies, those enemies whom the truth

Stings into hate, were plotting to destroy him.

Yet something shadowed him. I recall his words —

“The grapes are ripening. See, Celeste, how black

And heavy. We shall have good wine this year,” —

“Yes, all grows ripe,” I said, “your life-work, too,

Dear father. Are you happy now to know

Your book is printed, and the new world born?”

He shook his head, a little sadly, I thought.

“Autumn's too full of endings. Fruits grow ripe

And fall, and then comes winter.”

“Not for you!

Never,” I said, “for those who write their names

In heaven. Think, father, through all ages now

No one can ever watch that starry sky

Without remembering you. Your fame...”

And there

He stopped me, laid his hand upon my arm,

And standing in the darkness with dead leaves

Drifting around him, and his bare grey head

Bowed in complete humility, his voice

Shaken and low, he said like one in prayer,

“Celeste, beware of that. Say truth, not fame.

If there be any happiness on earth,

It springs from truth alone, the truth we live

In act and thought. I have looked up there and seen

Too many worlds to talk of fame on earth.

Fame, on this grain of dust among the stars,

The trumpet of a gnat that thinks to halt

The great sun-clusters moving on their way

In silence! Yes, that's fame, but truth, Celeste,

Truth and its laws are constant, even up there;

That's where one man may face and fight the world.

His weakness turns to strength. He is made one

With universal forces, and he holds

The password to eternity.

Gate after gate swings back through all the heavens.

No sentry halts him, and no flaming sword.

Say truth, Celeste, not fame.”

“No, for I'll say

A better word,” I told him. “I'll say love.”

He took my face between his hands and said —

His face all dark between me and the stars —

“What's love, Celeste, but this dear face of truth

Upturned to heaven.”

He left me, and I heard,

Some twelve hours later, that this man whose soul

Was dedicate to Truth, was threatened now

With torture, if his lips did not deny

The truth he loved.

I tell you all these things

Because to help him, you must understand him;

And even you may doubt him, if you hear

Only those plausible outside witnesses

Who never heard his heart-beats as have I.

So let me tell you all — his quest for truth,

And how this hate began.

Even from the first,

He made his enemies of those almost-minds

Who chanced upon some new thing in the dark

And could not see its meaning, for he saw,

Always, the law illumining it within.

So when he heard of that strange optic-glass

Which brought the distance near, he thought it out

By reason, where that other hit upon it

Only by chance. He made his telescope;

And O, how vividly that day comes back,

When in their gorgeous robes the Senate stood

Beside him on that high Venetian tower,

Scanning the bare blue sea that showed no speck

Of sail. Then, one by one, he bade them look;

And one by one they gasped, “a miracle.”

Brown sails and red, a fleet of fishing boats,

See how the bright foam bursts around their bows!

See how the bare-legged sailors walk the decks!

Then, quickly looking up, as if to catch

The vision, ere it tricked them, all they saw

Was empty sea again.

Many believed

That all was trickery, but he bade them note

The colours of the boats, and count their sails.

Then, in a little while, the naked eye

Saw on the sky-line certain specks that grew,

Took form and colour; and, within an hour,

Their magic fleet came foaming into port.

Whereat old senators, wagging their white beards,

And plucking at golden chains with stiff old claws

Too feeble for the sword-hilt, squeaked at once:

“This glass will give us great advantages

In time of war.”

War, war, O God of love,

Even amidst their wonder at Thy world,

Dazed with new beauty, gifted with new powers,

These old men dreamed of blood. This was the thought

To which all else must pander, if he hoped

Even for one hour to see those dull eyes blaze

At his discoveries.

“Wolves,” he called them, “wolves”;

And yet he humoured them. He stooped to them.

Promised them more advantages, and talked

As elders do to children. You may call it

Weakness, and yet could any man do more,

Alone, against a world, with such a trust

To guard for future ages? All his life

He has had some weanling truth to guard, has fought

Desperately to defend it, taking cover

Wherever he could, behind old fallen trees

Of superstition, or ruins of old thought.

He has read horoscopes to keep his work

Among the stars in favour with his prince,

I tell you this that you may understand

What seems inconstant in him. It may be

That he was wrong in these things, and must pay

A dreadful penalty. But you must explore

His mind's great ranges, plains and lonely peaks

Before you know him, as I know him now.

How could he talk to children, but in words

That children understand? Have not some said

That God Himself has made His glory dark

For men to bear it. In his human sphere

My father has done this.

War was the dream

That filmed those old men's eyes. They did not hear

My father, when he hinted at his hope

Of opening up the heavens for mankind

With that new power of bringing far things near.

My heart burned as I heard him; but they blinked

Like owls at noonday. Then I saw him turn,

Desperately, to humour them, from thoughts

Of heaven to thoughts of warfare.

Late that night

My own dear lord and father came to me

And whispered, with a glory in his face

As one who has looked on things too beautiful

To breathe aloud, “Come out, Celeste, and see

A miracle.”

I followed him. He showed me,

Looking along his outstretched hand, a star,

A point of light above our olive-trees.

It was the star called Jupiter. And then

He bade me look again, but through his glass.

I feared to look at first, lest I should see

Some wonder never meant for mortal eyes.

He too, had felt the same, not fear, but awe,

As if his hand were laid upon the veil

Between this world and heaven.

Then... I, too, saw,

Small as the smallest bead of mist that clings

To a spider's thread at dawn, the floating disk

Of what had been a star, a planet now,

And near it, with no disk that eyes could see,

Four needle-points of light, unseen before.

“The moons of Jupiter,” he whispered low,

“I have watched them as they moved, from night to night;

A system like our own, although the world

Their fourfold lights and shadows make so strange

Must — as I think — be mightier than we dreamed,

A Titan planet. Earth begins to fade

And dwindle; yes, the heavens are opening now.

Perhaps up there, this night, some lonely soul

Gazes at earth, watches our dawning moon,

And wonders, as we wonder.”

In that dark

We knelt together...

Very strange to see

The vanity and fickleness of princes.

Before his enemies had provoked the wrath

Of Rome against him, he had given the name

Of Medicean stars to those four moons

In honour of Prince Cosmo. This aroused

The court of France to seek a lasting place

Upon the map of heaven. A letter came

Beseeching him to find another star

Even more brilliant, and to call it Henri

After the reigning and most brilliant prince

Of France. They did not wish the family name

Of Bourbon. This would dissipate the glory.

No, they preferred his proper name of Henri.

We read it together in the garden here,

Weeping with laughter, never dreaming then

That this, this, this, could stir the little hearts

Of men to envy.

O, but afterwards,

The blindness of the men who thought themselves

His enemies. The men who never knew him,

The men that had set up a thing of straw

And called it by his name, and wished to burn

Their image and himself in one wild fire.

Men? Were they men or children? They refused

Even to look through Galileo's glass,

Lest seeing might persuade them. Even that sage,

That great Aristotelian, Julius Libri,

Holding his breath there, like a fractious child

Until his cheeks grew purple, and the veins

Were bursting on his brow, swore he would die

Sooner than look.

And that poor monstrous babe

Not long thereafter, kept his word and died,

Died of his own pent rage, as I have heard.

Whereat my lord and father shook his head

And, smiling, somewhat sadly — oh, you know

That smile of his, more deadly to the false

Than even his reasoning — murmured, “Libri, dead,

Who called the moons of Jupiter absurd!

He swore he would not look at them from earth,

I hope he saw them on his way to heaven.”

Welser in Augsburg, Clavius at Rome,

Scoffed at the fabled moons of Jupiter,

It was a trick, they said. He had made a glass

To fool the world with false appearances.

Perhaps the lens was flawed. Perhaps his wits

Were wandering. Anything rather than the truth

Which might disturb the mighty in their seat.

“Let Galileo hold his own opinions.

I, Clavius, will hold mine.”

He wrote to Kepler;

“You, Kepler, are the first, whose open mind

And lofty genius could accept for truth

The things which I have seen. With you for friend,

The abuse of the multitude will not trouble me.

Jupiter stands in heaven and will stand,

Though all the sycophants bark at him.

In Pisa,

Florence, Bologna, Venice, Padua,

Many have seen the moons. These witnesses

Are silent and uncertain. Do you wonder?

Most of them could not, even when they saw them,

Distinguish Mars from Jupiter. Shall we side

With Heraclitus or Democritus?

I think, my Kepler, we will only laugh

At this immeasurable stupidity.

Picture the leaders of our college here.

A thousand times I have offered them the proof

Of their own eyes. They sleep here, like gorged snakes,

Refusing even to look at planets, moons,

Or telescope. They think philosophy

Is all in books, and that the truth is found

Neither in nature, nor the Universe,

But in comparing texts. How you would laugh

Had you but heard our first philosopher

Before the Grand Duke, trying to tear down

And argue the new planets out of heaven,

Now by his own weird logic and closed eyes

And now by magic spells.”

How could he help

Despising them a little? It's an error

Even for a giant to despise a midge;

For, when the giant reels beneath some stroke

Of fate, the buzzing clouds will swoop upon him,

Cluster and feed upon his bleeding wounds,

And do what midges can to sting him blind.

These human midges have not missed their chance.

They have missed no smallest spot upon that sun.

My mother was not married — they have found —

To my dear father. All his children, then,

And doubtless all their thoughts are evil, too;

But who that judged him ever sought to know

Whether, as evil sometimes wears the cloak

Of virtue, nobler virtue in this man

Might wear that outward semblance of a sin?

Yes, even you who love me, may believe

These thoughts are born of my own tainted heart;

And yet I write them, kneeling in my cell

And whisper them to One who blesses me

Here, from His Cross, upon the bare grey wall.

So, if you love me, bless me also, you,

By helping him. Make plain to all you meet

What part his enemies have played in this.

How some one, somehow, altered the command

Laid on him all those years ago, by Rome,

So that it reads to-day as if he vowed

Never to think or breathe that this round earth

Moves with its sister-planets round the sun.

‘ Tis true he promised not to write or speak

As if this truth were‘ stablished equally

With God's eternal laws; and so he wrote

His Dialogues, reasoning for it, and against,

And gave the last word to Simplicio,

Saying that human reason must bow down

Before the power of God.

And even this

His enemies have twisted to a sneer

Against the Pope, and cunningly declared

Simplicio to be Urban.

Why, my friend,

There were three dolphins on the titlepage,

Each with the tail of another in its mouth.

The censor had not seen this, and they swore

It held some hidden meaning. Then they found

The same three dolphins sprawled on all the books

Landini printed at his Florence press.

They tried another charge.

I am not afraid

Of any truth that they can bring against him;

But, O, my friend, I more than fear their lies.

I do not fear the justice of our God;

But I do fear the vanity of men;

Even of Urban; not His Holiness,

But Urban, the weak man, who may resent,

And in resentment rush half-way to meet

This cunning lie with credence. Vanity!

O, half the wrongs on earth arise from that!

Greed, and war's pomp, all envy, and most hate,

Are born of that; while one dear humble heart,

Beating with love for man, between two thieves,

Proves more than all His wounds and miracles

Our Crucified to be the Son of God.

Say that I long to see him; that my prayers

Knock at the gates of mercy, night and day.

Urge him to leave the judgment now with God

And strive no more.

If he be right, the stars

Fight for him in their courses. Let him bow

His poor, dishonoured, glorious, old grey head

Before this storm, and then come home to me.

O, quickly, or I fear‘ twill be too late;

For I am dying. Do not tell him this;

But I must live to hold his hands again,

And know that he is safe.

I dare not leave him, helpless and half blind,

Half father and half child, to rack and cord.

By all the Christ within you, save him, you;

And, though you may have ceased to love me now,

One faithful shadow in your own last hour

Shall watch beside you till all shadows die,

And heaven unfold to bless you where I failed.