Then, through that night, the _vox humana_spoke
With deeper longing than Lucretius knew
When, in his great third book, the somber chant
Kindled and soared on those exultant wings,
Praising the master's hand from which he, too,
--Father, discoverer, hero--caught the fire.
It spoke of those vast labours, incomplete,
But, through their incompletion, infinite
In beauty, and in hope; the task bequeathed
From dying hand to hand.
Close to his grave
Like a _memento mori_ stood the hulk
Of that great weapon rusted and outworn,
Which once broke down the barriers of the sky.
_"Perrupit claustra"_; yes, and bridged their gulfs;
For, far beyond our solar scheme, it showed
The law that bound our planets binding still
Those coupled suns which year by year he watched
Around each other circling.
Had our own
Some distant comrade, lost among the stars?
Should we not, one day, just as Kepler drew
His planetary music and its laws
From all those faithful records Tycho made,
Discern at last what vaster music rules
The vaster drift of stars from deep to deep;
Around what awful Poles, those wisps of light
Those fifteen hundred universes move?
One signal, even now, across the dark,
Declared their worlds confederate with our own;
For, carrying many secrets, which we now
Slowly decipher, one swift messenger comes
Across the abyss.
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