My version lacks the glory of your lines But..." "Mine too was a version," Kepler laughed, "Turned into Latin from old Ptolemy's Greek; For, even in verse, half of the joy, I think, Is just to pass the torch from hand to hand An undimmed splendour. But, last night, I tried Some music all my own. I had a dream That I was wandering in some distant world. I have often dreamed it Once it was the moon. I wrote that down in prose. When I am dead, It may be printed. This was a fairer dream: For I was walking in a far-off spring Upon the planet, Venus. Only verse Could spread true wings for that delicious world; And so I wrote it--for no eyes but mine, Or 'twould be seized on, doubtless, as fresh proof Of poor old Kepler's madness."-- "Let me hear, Madman to madman; for I, too, write verse." Then Kepler, in a rhythmic murmur, breathed His rich enchanted memories of that dream: "Beauty burned before me Swinging a lanthorn through that fragrant night. I followed a distant singing, And a dreaming light How she led me, I cannot tell To that strange world afar, Nor how I walked, in that wild glen Upon the sunset star. Winged creatures floated Under those rose-red boughs of violet bloom, With delicate forms unknown on Earth 'Twixt irised plume and plume; Human-hearted, angel-eyed, And crowned with unknown flowers; For nothing in that enchanted world Followed the way of ours. Only I saw that Beauty, On Hesper, as on earth, still held command; And though, as one in slumber, I roamed that radiant land, With all these earth-born senses sealed To what the Hesperians knew, The faithful lanthorn of her law Was mine on Hesper too. Then, half at home with wonder, I saw strange flocks of flowers like birds take flight; Great trees that burned like opals To lure their loves at night; Dark beings that could move in realms No dream of ours has known. Till these became as common things As men account their own. Yet, when that lanthorn led me Back to the world where once I thought me wise; I saw, on this my planet, What souls, with awful eyes. Hardly I dared to walk her fields As in that strange re-birth I looked on those wild miracles The birds and flowers of earth."