I love this island,--every little glen,
Hazel-wood, brook, and fish-pond; every bough
And blossom in that garden; and I hoped
To die here. But it is not chance, I know,
That sends me wandering through the world again.
My use perhaps is ended; and the power
That made me, breaks me."
As he spoke, they saw
The tears upon his face. He bowed his head
And left them silent in the darkened room.
They saw his face no more.
The self-same hour,
Tycho, Christine, and all their children, left
Their island-home for even In their ship
They took a few of the smaller instruments,
And that most precious record of the stars,
His legacy to the future. Into the night
They vanished, leaving on the ghostly cliffs
Only one dark, distorted, dog-like shape
To watch them, sobbing, under its matted hair,
"Master, have you forgotten Jeppe, your dwarf?"
IX
He was a great magician, Tycho Brahe,
And yet his magic, under changing skies,
Could never change his heart, or touch the hills
Of those far countries with the tints of home.
And, after many a month of wandering,
He came to Prague; and, though with open hands
Rodolphe received him, like an exiled king,
A new Aeneas, exiled for the truth
(For so they called him), none could heal the wounds
That bled within, or lull his grief to sleep
With that familiar whisper of the waves,
Ebbing and flowing around Uraniborg.
Pages:
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70