show that spiritual values are not diminished or overwhelmed by the "fifteen hundred universes" that passed in review before the telescope of Herschel, it is only after the opposite argument--so common and so easy to-day--has been faced; and only after poetry has at least endeavoured to follow the torch of science to its own deep-set boundary-mark in that immense darkness of Space and Time. CONTENTS Prologue I. Copernicus II. Tycho Brahe III. Kepler IV. Galileo V. Newton VI. William Herschel Conducts VII. Sir John Herschel Remembers Epilogue PROLOGUE THE OBSERVATORY At noon, upon the mountain's purple height, Above the pine-woods and the clouds it shone No larger than the small white dome of shell Left by the fledgling wren when wings are born. By night it joined the company of heaven, And, with its constant light, became a star. A needle-point of light, minute, remote, It sent a subtler message through the abyss, Held more significance for the seeing eye Than all the darkness that would blot it out, Yet could not dwarf it. High in heaven it shone, Alive with all the thoughts, and hopes, and dreams Of man's adventurous mind. Up there, I knew The explorers of the sky, the pioneers Of science, now made ready to attack That darkness once again, and win new worlds. To-morrow night they hoped to crown the toil Of twenty years, and turn upon the sky The noblest weapon ever made by man. War had delayed them. They had been drawn away Designing darker weapons. But no gun Could outrange this.