He was a great magician, Tycho Brahe. There, on his island, for a score of years, He watched the skies, recording star on star, For future ages, and, by patient toil, Perfected his great tables of the sun, The moon, the planets. There, too happy far For any history, sons and daughters rose, A little clan of love, around Christine; And Tycho thought, when I am dead, my sons Will rule and work in my Uraniborg. And yet a doubt would trouble him, for he knew The children of Christine would still be held Ignoble, by the world. Disciples came, Young-eyed and swift, the bearers of the torch From many a city to Uraniborg, And Tycho Brahe received them like a king, And bade them light their torches at his fire. The King of Scotland came, with all his court, And dwelt eight days in Tycho Brahe's domain, Asking him many a riddle, deep and dark, Whose answer, none the less, a king should know. What boots it on this earth to be a king, To rule a part of earth, and not to know The worth of his own realm, whether he rule As God's vice-gerent, and his realm be still The centre of the centre of all worlds; Or whether, as Copernicus proclaimed, This earth itself be moving, a lost grain Of dust among the innumerable stars? For this would dwarf all glory but the soul, In king or peasant, that can hail the truth, Though truth should slay it. So to Tycho Brahe, The king became a subject for eight days. But, in the crowded hall, when he had gone, Jeppe raised his matted head, with a chuckle of glee, Quiet as the gurgle of joy in a dark rock-pool, When the first ripple and wash of the first spring-tide Flows bubbling under the dry sun-blackened fringe Of seaweed, setting it all afloat again, In magical colours, like a merman's hair. "Jeppe has a thought," the gay young students cried, Thronging him round, for all believed that Jeppe Was fey, and had strange visions of the truth. "What is the thought, Jeppe?" "I can think no thoughts," Croaked Jeppe. "But I have made myself a song." "Silence," they cried, "for Jeppe the nightingale! Sing, Jeppe!" And, wagging his great head to and fro Before the fire, with deep dark eyes, he crooned: THE SONG OF JEPPE