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This volume, while it is complete in itself, is also the first of atrilogy, the scope of which is suggested in the prologue. The story ofscientific discovery has its own epic unity—a unity of purpose andendeavour—the single torch passing from hand to hand through thecenturies; and the great moments of science when, after long labour,the pioneers saw their accumulated facts falling into a significantorder—sometimes in the form of a law that revolutionised the wholeworld of thought—have an intense human interest, and belongessentially to the creative imagination of poetry. It is with thesemoments that my poem is chiefly concerned, not with any impossibleattempt to cover the whole field or to make a new poetic system, afterthe Lucretian model, out of modern science.
The theme has been in my mind for a good many years; and the firstvolume, dealing with the "Watchers of the Sky," began to take definiteshape during what was to me an unforgettable experience—the night Iwas privileged to spend on a summit of the Sierra Madre Mountains,when the first trial was made of the new 100-inch telescope. Theprologue to this volume attempts to give a picture of that night, andto elucidate my own purpose.
The first tale in this volume plunges into the middle of things, withthe revolution brought about by Copernicus; but, within the tale,partly by means of an incidental lyric, there is an attempt to give abird's-eye view of what had gone before. The torch then passes toTycho Brahe, who, driven into exile with his tables of the stars, atthe very point of death hands them over to a young man named Kepler.Kepler, with their help, arrives at his own great laws, andcorresponds with Galileo—the intensely human drama of whose life Ihave endeavoured to depict with more historical accuracy than can beattributed to much of the poetic literature that has gathered aroundhis name. Too many writers have succumbed to the temptation of thecry, "e pur si muove!" It is, of course, rejected by every reliablehistorian, and was first attributed to Galileo a hundred years afterhis death. M. Ponsard, in his play on the subject, succumbed to theextent of making his final scene end with Galileo "frappant du pied laterre," and crying, "pourtant elle tourne." Galileo's recantation wasa far more subtle and tragically complicated affair than that. EvenLandor succumbed to the easy method of making him display his entirelylegendary scars to Milton. If these familiar pictures are not to befound in my poem, it may be well for me to assure the hasty readerthat it is because I have endeavoured to present a more just picture.I have tried to suggest the complications of motive in this section bya series of letters passing between the characters chiefly concerned.There was, of course, a certain poetic significance in the legend of"e pur si muove"; and this significance I have endeavoured to retainwithout violating historical truth.
In the year of Galileo's death Newton was born, and the subsequentsections carry the story on to the modern observatory again. The formI have adopted is a development from that of an earlier book,"Tales of the Mermaid Tavern" where certain poets anddiscoverers of another kind were brought together round a centralidea, and their stories told in a combination of narrative and lyricalverse. "The Torch-Bearers" f