Poetry Month (April is the Cruellest Month?)

[tree_and_leaf]

Not my nation, and I shan't manage a poem a day, but there's still always a good reason for poetry... I love this poem, even (because?) it sounds like a pastiche of Browning, and despite the ugly repetition of 'smiles' in st 3. But the last couplet is just superb.

The Old Astronomer to His Pupil

Reach me down my Tycho Brahe, I would know him when we meet,
When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet;
He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how
We are working to completion, working on from then to now.

Pray remember that I leave you all my theory complete,
Lacking only certain data for your adding, as is meet,
And remember men will scorn it, 'tis original and true,
And the obloquy of newness may fall bitterly on you.

But, my pupil, as my pupil you have learned the worth of scorn,
You have laughed with me at pity, we have joyed to be forlorn,
What for us are all distractions of men's fellowship and smiles;
What for us the Goddess Pleasure with her meretricious wiles!

You may tell that German College that their honour comes too late,
But they must not waste repentance on the grizzly savant's fate.
Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.

--- Sarah Williams

ETA: following a suggestion from azdak, I've amended the last line of the third verse from the version I found on the net, which repeats 'smiles', which is unsatisfactory and looks suspiciously like Augensprung. Unfortunately I haven't got access to a more authoritative text; it must be in the Bodeleian somewhere, but right now I'm in the wrong country...

Comments

[rivrea.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the heads up! I have just read the comment above -- IMHO, the final couplet of the abridged version makes the better ending, though.