Poems Real and Ideal By George Barlow |
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| XIV. |
| XVII. |
| XIX. |
| XXI. |
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| XXIII. |
| XXVII. |
| XXVIII. |
| XXIX. |
| XXX. |
| XLIV, XLV, XLVI. |
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| II. |
| III. |
| XLVII. |
| LI. |
| LIV. |
| LVII. |
| LIX. |
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| IV. |
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| II. |
| IV. |
| VI. |
| VII. |
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POETRY AND SCIENCE.
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| XX. |
| XXI. |
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| I. |
| II. |
| IX. |
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| XXII. |
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| IV. |
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 | Poems Real and Ideal |  |
247
POETRY AND SCIENCE.
Not all the songs of stars and starry wild embraces
Are worth the very least and worst of human faces:
Not all the suns can shine
Like one true human heart that glows with loving-kindness:
Gaze through your telescopes till ye be stricken with blindness;
Not all your lore is worth one golden line!
Are worth the very least and worst of human faces:
Not all the suns can shine
Like one true human heart that glows with loving-kindness:
Gaze through your telescopes till ye be stricken with blindness;
Not all your lore is worth one golden line!
What is it unto man to know the leagues that sever
Our patient green-grassed earth for ever and for ever
From Sirius or from Mars?
What is it unto us to know that three-ringed Saturn
Is uncompleted yet, a laggard and a slattern,
For all his moons, amid the elder stars!
Our patient green-grassed earth for ever and for ever
From Sirius or from Mars?
248
Is uncompleted yet, a laggard and a slattern,
For all his moons, amid the elder stars!
What is it unto us to gaze till brain grows dizzy
At the wild golden ants who make the heaven so busy
As over it they creep?
If unto us the heaven were opened, and we knew them,
Gold star by star, and could, long rank by rank, review them,
Would it be worth one gift of white-armed sleep?
At the wild golden ants who make the heaven so busy
As over it they creep?
If unto us the heaven were opened, and we knew them,
Gold star by star, and could, long rank by rank, review them,
Would it be worth one gift of white-armed sleep?
Would it be worth the sleep that Love pours o'er the pillow
When the soft rest succeeds to passion's wild fierce billow?
Would all the starry lore
Be worth two star-like eyes, and mouth so sweet and tender
Its warm close touch outweighs the cold sidereal splendour?
Love gives us all things. Can the stars do more?
When the soft rest succeeds to passion's wild fierce billow?
Would all the starry lore
Be worth two star-like eyes, and mouth so sweet and tender
Its warm close touch outweighs the cold sidereal splendour?
Love gives us all things. Can the stars do more?
249
What is it worth to man to thread the chill star-spaces?
Oh here on earth are warm white passionate embraces!
Thou needst not seek the sky!
Lo! very near and sweet the flowers of earth surround thee.
If woman's lips have touched and woman's love hath crowned thee
Thou hast thine heaven of suns and stars,—close by.
Oh here on earth are warm white passionate embraces!
Thou needst not seek the sky!
Lo! very near and sweet the flowers of earth surround thee.
If woman's lips have touched and woman's love hath crowned thee
Thou hast thine heaven of suns and stars,—close by.
In traversing the air one grows quite cold and chilly!
Far, far, beyond all rocks and cliffs and uplands hilly
The eyes of Science seek.
Then back to earth they turn; and yet the glow within them
Is not what we should see (and see with gladness) in them
Had Love once touched cold Science' frigid cheek!
Far, far, beyond all rocks and cliffs and uplands hilly
The eyes of Science seek.
Then back to earth they turn; and yet the glow within them
Is not what we should see (and see with gladness) in them
Had Love once touched cold Science' frigid cheek!
The old warm myths of Greece had far more life and glory
Than Science e'er will have, though she wax old and hoary
And wise beyond her dream.
The moon and sun were gods. We could not do without them.
Our misery is now we know too much about them.
We analyse Apollo's golden beam.
Than Science e'er will have, though she wax old and hoary
And wise beyond her dream.
250
Our misery is now we know too much about them.
We analyse Apollo's golden beam.
We analyse all things, and push too far inquiry.—
The rainbow is mere light. The sun is but a fiery
Vast glowing blazing orb.
Oh, better far than this through the green woods to wander
And meet a white-robed sweet great-eyed grand goddess yonder
And let her beauty all your soul absorb!
The rainbow is mere light. The sun is but a fiery
Vast glowing blazing orb.
Oh, better far than this through the green woods to wander
And meet a white-robed sweet great-eyed grand goddess yonder
And let her beauty all your soul absorb!
It was far better—yes!—to meet a woodland fairy
Than to sail forth throughout the blue void regions airy
With Tyndall by your side!
I'd choose—yes, I would choose!—had I the choice, to follow
Along the gold-flowered mead the footsteps of Apollo
Rather than Proctor's,—though his path be wide!
Than to sail forth throughout the blue void regions airy
With Tyndall by your side!
I'd choose—yes, I would choose!—had I the choice, to follow
Along the gold-flowered mead the footsteps of Apollo
Rather than Proctor's,—though his path be wide!
251
Give me the days of faith, and not the days of Science,
Where fancy is concerned. Each new exact appliance
Leaves still less room to dream.
The fairies, like the wolves that haunted forest-marches,
Are disappearing fast. No white robe thrills the larches:
Titania travels not the moony gleam!
Where fancy is concerned. Each new exact appliance
Leaves still less room to dream.
The fairies, like the wolves that haunted forest-marches,
Are disappearing fast. No white robe thrills the larches:
Titania travels not the moony gleam!
Knowledge hath little worth, if all the dreams are going.
God! let me wander forth beside blue waters flowing
And find sweet Venus there.
Let me within the grove find some gay frolic fairy
And clasp her round the waist, and kiss the red lips chary!
Let me watch in the stream the Naiad's hair!
God! let me wander forth beside blue waters flowing
And find sweet Venus there.
Let me within the grove find some gay frolic fairy
And clasp her round the waist, and kiss the red lips chary!
Let me watch in the stream the Naiad's hair!
To know is great and well: but not to know is better.
To add new facts to facts adds fetter unto fetter
For all the human race.
To number all the stars outweighs not what we are losing
In knowing that no more among the reed-beds musing
Shall we see Pan's half-human wrinkled face.
To add new facts to facts adds fetter unto fetter
For all the human race.
252
In knowing that no more among the reed-beds musing
Shall we see Pan's half-human wrinkled face.
March, 1883.
| Poems Real and Ideal | |