The Poetry Corner

Newton

By Alfred Noyes

I If I saw farther, 'twas because I stood On giant shoulders," wrote the king of thought, Too proud of his great line to slight the toils Of his forebears. He turned to their dim past, Their fading victories and their fond defeats, And knelt as at an altar, drawing all Their strengths into his own; and so went forth With all their glory shining in his face, To win new victories for the age to come. So, where Copernicus had destroyed the dream We called our world; where Galileo watched Those ancient firmaments melt, a thin blue smoke Into a vaster night; where Kepler heard Only stray fragments, isolated chords Of that tremendous music which should bind All things anew in one, Newton arose And carried on their fire. Around him reeled Through lingering fumes of hate and clouds of doubt, Lit by the afterglow of the Civil War, The dissolute throngs of that Walpurgis night Where all the cynical spirits that deny Danced with the vicious lusts that drown the soul In flesh too gross for Circe or her swine. But, in his heart, he heard one instant voice. "On with the torch once more, make all things new, Build the new heaven and earth, and save the world." Ah, but the infinite patience, the long months Lavished on tasks that, to the common eye, Were insignificant, never to be crowned With great results, or even with earth's rewards. Could Rembrandt but have painted him, in those hours Making his first analysis of light Alone, there, in his darkened Cambridge room At Trinity! Could he have painted, too, The secret glow, the mystery, and the power, The sense of all the thoughts and unseen spires That soared to heaven around him! He stood there, Obscure, unknown, the shadow of a man In darkness, like a grey dishevelled ghost, --Bare-throated, down at heel, his last night's supper Littering his desk, untouched; his glimmering face, Under his tangled hair, intent and still,-- Preparing our new universe. He caught The sunbeam striking through that bullet-hole In his closed shutter--a round white spot of light Upon a small dark screen. He interposed A prism of glass. He saw the sunbeam break And spread upon the screen its rainbow band Of disentangled colours, all in scale Like notes in music; first, the violet ray, Then indigo, trembling softly into blue; Then green and yellow, quivering side by side; Then orange, mellowing richly into red. Then, in the screen, he made a small, round hole Like to the first; and through it passed once more Each separate coloured ray. He let it strike Another prism of glass, and saw each hue Bent at a different angle from its path, The red the least, the violet ray the most; But all in scale and order, all precise As notes in music. Last, he took a lens, And, passing through it all those coloured rays, Drew them together again, remerging all On that dark screen, in one white spot of light. So, watching, testing, proving, he resolved The seeming random glories of our day Into a constant harmony, and found How in the whiteness of the sunlight sleep Compounded, all the colours of the world. He saw how raindrops in the clouds of heaven Breaking the light, revealed that sevenfold arch Of colours, ranged as on his own dark screen, Though now they spanned the mountains and wild seas. Then, where that old-world order had gone down Beneath a darker deluge, he beheld Gleams of the great new order and recalled --Fraught with new meaning and a deeper hope-- That covenant which God made with all mankind Throughout all generations: I will set My bow in the cloud, that henceforth ye may know How deeper than the wreckage of your dreams Abides My law, in beauty and in power. II Yet for that exquisite balance of the mind, He, too, must pay the price. He stood alone Bewildered, at the sudden assault of fools On this, his first discovery. "I have lost The most substantial blessing of my quiet To follow a vain shadow. I would fain Attempt no more. So few can understand, Or read one thought. So many are ready at once To swoop and sting. Indeed I would withdraw For ever from philosophy." So he wrote In grief, the mightiest mind of that new age. Let those who'd stone the Roman Curia For all the griefs that Galileo knew Remember the dark hours that well-nigh quenched The splendour of that spirit. He could not sleep. Yet, with that patience of the God in man That still must seek the Splendour whence it came, Through midnight hours of mockery and defeat, In loneliness and hopelessness and tears, He laboured on. He had no power to see How, after many years, when he was dead, Out of this new discovery men should make An instrument to explore the farthest stars And, delicately dividing their white rays, Divine what metals in their beauty burned, Extort red secrets from the heart of Mars, Or measure the molten iron in the sun. He bent himself to nearer, lowlier, tasks; And seeing, first, that those deflected rays, Though it were only by the faintest bloom Of colour, imperceptible to our eyes, Must dim the vision of Galileo's glass, He made his own new weapon of the sky,-- That first reflecting telescope which should hold In its deep mirror, as in a breathless pool The undistorted image of a star. III In that deep night where Galileo groped Like a blind giant in dreams to find what power Held moons and planets to their constant road Through vastness, ordered like a moving fleet; What law so married them that they could not clash Or sunder, but still kept their rhythmic pace As if those ancient tales indeed were true And some great angel helmed each gliding sphere; Many had sought an answer. Many had caught Gleams of the truth; and yet, as when a torch Is waved above a multitude at night, And shows wild streams of faces, all confused, But not the single law that knits them all Into an ordered nation, so our skies For all those fragmentary glimpses, whirled In chaos, till one eagle-spirit soared, Found the one law that bound them all in one, And through that awful unity upraised The soul to That which made and guides them all. Did Newton, dreaming in his orchard there Beside the dreaming Witham, see the moon Burn like a huge gold apple in the boughs And wonder why should moons not fall like fruit? Or did he see as those old tales declare (Those fairy-tales that gather form and fire Till, in one jewel, they pack the whole bright world) A ripe fruit fall from some immortal tree Of knowledge, while he wondered at what height Would this earth-magnet lose its darkling power? Would not the fruit fall earthward, though it grew High o'er the hills as yonder brightening cloud? Would not the selfsame power that plucked the fruit Draw the white moon, then, sailing in the blue? Then, in one flash, as light and song are born, And the soul wakes, he saw it--this dark earth Holding the moon that else would fly through space To her sure orbit, as a stone is held In a whirled sling; and, by the selfsame power, Her sister planets guiding all their moons; While, exquisitely balanced and controlled In one vast system, moons and planets wheeled Around one sovran majesty, the sun. IV Light and more light! The spark from heaven was there, The flash of that reintegrating fire Flung from heaven's altars, where all light is born, To feed the imagination of mankind With vision, and reveal all worlds in one. But let no dreamer dream that his great work Sprang, armed, like Pallas from the Thunderer's brain. With infinite patience he must test and prove His vision now, in those clear courts of Truth Whose absolute laws (bemocked by shallower minds As less than dreams, less than the faithless faith That fears the Truth, lest Truth should slay the dream) Are man's one guide to his transcendent heaven; For there's no wandering splendour in the soul, But in the highest heaven of all is one With absolute reality. None can climb Back to that Fount of Beauty but through pain. Long, long he toiled, comparing first the curves Traced by the cannon-ball as it soared and fell With that great curving road across the sky Traced by the sailing moon. Was earth a loadstone Holding them to their paths by that dark force Whose mystery men have cloaked beneath a name? Yet, when he came to test and prove, he found That all the great deflections of the moon, Her shining cadences from the path direct, Were utterly inharmonious with the law Of that dark force, at such a distance acting, Measured from earth's own centre.... For three long years, Newton withheld his hope Until that day when light was brought from France, New light, new hope, in one small glistening fact, Clear-cut as any diamond; and to him Loaded with all significance, like the point Of light that shows where constellations burn. Picard in France--all glory to her name Who is herself a light among all lands-- Had measured earth's diameter once more With exquisite precision. To the throng, Those few corrected ciphers, his results, Were less than nothing; yet they changed the world. For Newton seized them and, with trembling hands, Began to work his problem out anew. Then, then, as on the page those figures turned To hieroglyphs of heaven, and he beheld The moving moon, with awful cadences Falling into the path his law ordained, Even to the foot and second, his hand shook And dropped the pencil. "Work it out for me," He cried to those around him; for the weight Of that celestial music overwhelmed him; And, on his page, those burning hieroglyphs Were Thrones and Principalities and Powers... For far beyond, immeasurably far Beyond our sun, he saw that river of suns We call the Milky Way, that glittering host Powdering the night, each grain of solar blaze Divided from its neighbour by a gulf Too wide for thought to measure; each a sun Huger than ours, with its own fleet of worlds, Visible and invisible. Those bright throngs That seemed dispersed like a defeated host Through blindly wandering skies, now, at the word Of one great dreamer, height o'er height revealed Hints of a vaster order, and moved on In boundless intricacies of harmony Around one centre, deeper than all suns, The burning throne of God. V He could not sleep. That intellect, whose wings Dared the cold ultimate heights of Space and Time Sank, like a wounded eagle, with dazed eyes Back, headlong through the clouds to throb on earth. What shaft had pierced him? That which also pierced His great forebears--the hate of little men. They flocked around him, and they flung their dust Into the sensitive eyes and laughed to see How dust could blind them. If one prickling grain Could so put out his vision and so torment That delicate brain, what weakness! How the mind That seemed to dwarf us, dwindles! Is he mad? So buzzed the fools, whose ponderous mental wheels Nor dust, nor grit, nor stones, nor rocks could irk Even for an instant. Newton could not sleep, But all that careful malice could design Was blindly fostered by well-meaning folly, And great sane folk like Mr. Samuel Pepys Canvassed his weakness and slept sound all night. For little Samuel with his rosy face Came chirping into a coffee-house one day Like a plump robin, "Sir, the unhappy state Of Mr. Isaac Newton grieves me much. Last week I had a letter from him, filled With strange complainings, very curious hints, Such as, I grieve to say, are common signs --I have observed it often--of worse to come. He said that he could neither eat nor sleep Because of all the embroilments he was in, Hinting at nameless enemies. Then he begged My pardon, very strangely. I believe Physicians would confirm me in my fears. 'Tis very sad.... Only last night, I found Among my papers certain lines composed By--whom d'you think?--My lord of Halifax (Or so dear Mrs. Porterhouse assured me) Expressing, sir, the uttermost satisfaction In Mr. Newton's talent. Sir, he wrote Answering the charge that science would put out The light of beauty, these very handsome lines: 'When Newton walked by Witham stream There fell no chilling shade To blight the drifting naiad's dream Or make her garland fade. The mist of sun was not less bright That crowned Urania's hair. He robbed it of its colder light, But left the rainbow there.' They are very neat and handsome, you'll agree. Solid in sense as Dryden at his best, And smooth as Waller, but with something more,-- That touch of grace, that airier elegance Which only rank can give. 'Tis very sad That one so nobly praised should--well, no matter!-- I am told, sir, that these troubles all began At Cambridge, when his manuscripts were burned. He had been working, in his curious way, All through the night; and, in the morning greyness Went down to chapel, leaving on his desk A lighted candle. You can imagine it,-- A sadly sloven altar to his Muse, Littered with papers, cups, and greasy plates Of untouched food. I am told that he would eat His Monday's breakfast, sir, on Tuesday morning, Such was his absent way! When he returned, He found that Diamond (his little dog Named Diamond, for a black patch near his tail) Had overturned the candle. All his work Was burned to ashes. It struck him to the quick, Though, when his terrier fawned about his feet, He showed no anger. He was heard to say, 'O Diamond, Diamond, little do you know...' But, from that hour, ah well, we'll say no more." Halley was there that day, and spoke up sharply, "Sir, there are hints and hints! Do you mean more?" --"I do, sir," chirruped Samuel, mightily pleased To find all eyes, for once, on his fat face. "I fear his intellects are disordered, sir." --"Good! That's an answer! I can deal with that. But tell me first," quoth Halley, "why he wrote That letter, a week ago, to Mr. Pepys." --"Why, sir," piped Samuel, innocent of the trap, "I had an argument in this coffee-house Last week, with certain gentlemen, on the laws Of chance, and what fair hopes a man might have Of throwing six at dice. I happened to say That Mr. Isaac Newton was my friend, And promised I would sound him." "Sir," said Halley, "You'll pardon me, but I forgot to tell you I heard, a minute since, outside these doors, A very modish woman of the town, Or else a most delicious lady of fashion, A melting creature with a bold black eye, A bosom like twin doves; and, sir, a mouth Like a Turk's dream of Paradise. She cooed, 'Is Mr. Pepys within?' I greatly fear That they denied you to her!" Off ran Pepys! "A hint's a hint," laughed Halley, "and so to bed. But, as for Isaac Newton, let me say, Whatever his embroilments were, he solved With just one hour of thought, not long ago The problem set by Leibnitz as a challenge To all of Europe. He published his result Anonymously, but Leibnitz, when he saw it, Cried out, at once, old enemy as he was, 'That's Newton, none but Newton! From this claw I know the old lion, in his midnight lair.'" VI (Sir Isaac Newton writes to Mrs. Vincent at Woolthorpe.) Your letter, on my eightieth birthday, wakes Memories, like violets, in this London gloom. You have never failed, for more than three-score years To send these annual greetings from the haunts Where you and I were boy and girl together. A day must come-it cannot now be far-- When I shall have no power to thank you for them, So let me tell you now that, all my life, They have come to me with healing in their wings Like birds from home, birds from the happy woods Above the Witham, where you walked with me When you and I were young. Do you remember Old Barley--how he tried to teach us drawing? He found some promise, I believe, in you, But quite despaired of me. I treasure all Those little sketches that you sent to me Each Christmas, carrying each some glimpse of home. There's one I love that shows the narrow lane Behind the schoolhouse, where I had that bout Of schoolboy fisticuffs. I have never known More pleasure, I believe, than when I beat That black-haired bully and won, for my reward, Those April smiles from you. I see you still Standing among the fox-gloves in the hedge; And just behind you, in the field, I know There was a patch of aromatic flowers,-- Rest-harrow, was it? Yes; their tangled roots Pluck at the harrow; halt the sharp harrow of thought, Even in old age. I never breathe their scent But I am back in boyhood, dreaming there Over some book, among the diligent bees, Until you join me, and we dream together. They called me lazy, then. Oddly enough It was that fight that stirred my mind to beat My bully at his books, and head the school; Blind rivalry, at first. By such fond tricks The invisible Power that shapes us--not ourselves-- Punishes, teaches, leads us gently on Like children, all our lives, until we grasp A sudden meaning and are born, through death Into full knowledge that our Guide was Love. Another picture shows those woods of ours, Around whose warm dark edges in the spring Primroses, knots of living sunlight, woke; And, always, you, their radiant shepherdess From Elfland, lead them rambling back for me, The dew still clinging to their golden fleece, Through these grey memory-mists. Another shows My old sun-dial. You say that it is known As "Isaac's dial" still. I took great pains To set it rightly. If it has not shifted 'Twill mark the time long after I am gone; Not like those curious water-clocks I made. Do you remember? They worked well at first; But the least particles in the water clogged The holes through which it dripped; and so, one day, We two came home so late that we were sent Supperless to our beds; and suffered much From the world's harshness, as we thought it then. Would God that we might taste that harshness now. I cannot send you what you've sent to me; And so I wish you'll never thank me more For those poor gifts I have sent from year to year. I send another, and hope that you can use it To buy yourself those comforts which you need This Christmas-time. How strange it is to wake And find that half a century has gone by, With all our endless youth. They talk to me Of my discoveries, prate of undying fame Too late to help me. Anything I achieved Was done through work and patience; and the men Who sought quick roads to glory for themselves Were capable of neither. So I won Their hatred, and it often hampered me, Because it vexed my mind. This world of ours Would give me all, now I have ceased to want it; For I sit here, alone, a sad old man, Sipping his orange-water, nodding to sleep, Not caring any more for aught they say, Not caring any more for praise or blame; But dreaming-things we dreamed of, long ago, In childhood. You and I had laughed away That boy and girl affair. We were too poor For anything but laughter. I am old; And you, twice wedded and twice widowed, still Retain, through all your nearer joys and griefs, The old affection. Vaguely our blind old hands Grope for each other in this growing dark And deepening loneliness,--to say "good-bye." Would that my words could tell you all my heart; But even my words grow old. Perhaps these lines, Written not long ago, may tell you more. I have no skill in verse, despite the praise Your kindness gave me, once; but since I wrote Thinking of you, among the woods of home, My heart was in them. Let them turn to yours: Give me, for friends, my own true folk Who kept the very word they spoke; Whose quiet prayers, from day to day, Have brought the heavens about my way. Not those whose intellectual pride Would quench the only lights that guide; Confuse the lines 'twixt good and ill Then throne their own capricious will; Not those whose eyes in mockery scan The simpler hopes and dreams of man; Not those keen wits, so quick to hurt, So swift to trip you in the dirt. Not those who'd pluck your mystery out, Yet never saw your last redoubt; Whose cleverness would kill the song Dead at your heart, then prove you wrong. Give me those eyes I used to know Where thoughts like angels come and go; --Not glittering eyes, nor dimmed by books, But eyes through which the deep soul looks. Give me the quiet hands and face That never strove for fame and place; The soul whose love, so many a day Has brought the heavens about my way. VII Was it a dream, that low dim-lighted room With that dark periwigged phantom of Dean Swift Writing, beside a fire, to one he loved,-- Beautiful Catherine Barton, once the light Of Newton's house, and his half-sister's child? Yes, Catherine Barton, I am brave enough To face this pale, unhappy, wistful ghost Of our departed friendship. It was I Savage and mad, a snarling kennel of sins, "Your Holiness," as you called me, with that smile Which even your ghost would quietly turn on me-- Who raised it up. It has no terrors, dear. And I shall never lay it while I live. You write to me. You think I have the power To shield the fame of Newton from a lie. Poor little ghost! You think I hold the keys Not only of Parnassus, then, but hell. There is a tale abroad that Newton owed His public office to Lord Halifax, Your secret lover. Coarseness, as you know, Is my peculiar privilege. I'll be plain, And let them wince who are whispering in the dark. They are hinting that he gained his public post Through you, his flesh and blood; and that he knew You were his patron's mistress! Yes, I know The coffee-house that hatched it--to be scotched, Nay, killed, before one snuff-box could say "snap," Had not one cold malevolent face been there Listening,--that crystal-minded lover of truth, That lucid enemy of all lies,--Voltaire. I am told he is doing much to spread the light Of Newton's great discoveries, there, in France. There's little fear that France, whose clear keen eyes Have missed no morning in the realm of thought, Would fail to see it; and smaller need to lift A brand from hell to illume the light from heaven. You fear he'll print his lie. No doubt of that. I can foresee the phrase, as Halley saw The advent of his comet,--jolie niece, Assez amiable, ... then he'll give your name As Madame Conduit, adding just that spice Of infidelity that the dates admit To none but these truth-lovers. It will be best Not to enlighten him, or he'll change his tale And make an answer difficult. Let him print This truth as he conceives it, and you'll need No more defence. All history then shall damn his death-cold lie And show you for the laughing child you were When Newton won his office. For yourself You say you have no fear. Your only thought Is that they'll soil his fame. Ah yes, they'll try, But they'll not hurt it. For all time to come It stands there, firm as marble and as pure. They can do nothing that the sun and rain Will not erase at last. Not even Voltaire Can hurt that noble memory. Think of him As of a viper writhing at the base Of some great statue. Let the venomous tongue Flicker against that marble as it may It cannot wound it. I am far more grieved For you, who sit there wondering now, too late, If it were some suspicion, some dark hint Newton had heard that robbed him of his sleep, And almost broke his mind up. I recall How the town buzzed that Newton had gone mad. You copy me that sad letter which he wrote To Locke, wherein he begs him to forgive The hard words he had spoken, thinking Locke Had tried to embroil him, as he says, with women; A piteous, humble letter. Had he heard Some hint of scandal that he could not breathe To you, because he honoured you too well? I cannot tell. His mind was greatly troubled With other things. At least, you need not fear That Newton thought it true. He walked aloof, Treading a deeper stranger world than ours. Have you not told me how he would forget Even to eat and drink, when he was wrapt In those miraculous new discoveries And, under this wild maze of shadow and sun Beheld--though not the Master Player's hand-- The keys from which His organ music rolls, Those visible symphonies of wild cloud and light Which clothe the invisible world for mortal eyes. I have heard that Leibnitz whispered to the court That Newton was an "atheist." Leibnitz knew His audience. He could stoop to it. Fools have said That knowledge drives out wonder from the world; They'll say it still, though all the dust's ablaze With miracles at their feet; while Newton's laws Foretell that knowledge one day shall be song, And those whom Truth has taken to her heart Find that it beats in music. Even this age Has glimmerings of it. Newton never saw His own full victory; but at least he knew That all the world was linked in one again; And, if men found new worlds in years to come, These too must join the universal song. That's why true poets love him; and you'll find Their love will cancel all that hate can do. They are the sentinels of the House of Fame; And that quick challenging couplet from the pen Of Alexander Pope is answer enough To all those whisperers round the outer doors. There's Addison, too. The very spirit and thought Of Newton moved to music when he wrote The Spacious Firmament. Some keen-eyed age to come Will say, though Newton seldom wrote a verse, That music was his own and speaks his faith. And, last, for those who doubt his faith in God 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 Space 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 God, 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 space, 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-shore, gathers here a shell, 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.