But there's this other charge against my friend, And master, Galileo. It is brought By friends, made sharper by their pity and grief, The charge that he refused his martyrdom And so denied his own high faith. Whose faith,-- His friends', his Protestant followers', or his own? Faced by the torture, that sublime old man Was still a faithful Catholic, and his thought Plunged deeper than his Protestant followers knew. His aim was not to strike a blow at Rome But to confound his enemies. He believed As humbly as Castelli or Celeste That there is nothing absolute but that Power With which his Church confronted him. To this He bowed his head, acknowledging that his light Was darkness; but affirming, all the more, That Ptolemy's light was even darker yet. Read your own Protestant Milton, who derived His mighty argument from my master's lips: _"Whether the sun predominant in heaven Rise on the earth, or earth rise on the sun; Leave them to God above; Him serve and fear."_ Just as in boyhood, when my master watched The swinging lamp in the cathedral there At Pisa; and, by one finger on his pulse, Found that, although the great bronze miracle swung Through ever-shortening spaces, yet it moved More slowly, and so still swung in equal times; He straight devised another boon to man, Those pulse-clocks which by many a fevered bed Our doctors use; dreamed of that timepiece, too, Whose punctual swinging pendulum on earth Measures the starry periods, and to-day Talks peacefully to children by the fire Like an old grandad full of ancient tales, Remembering endless ages, and foretelling Eternities to come; but, all the while There, in the dim cathedral, he knew well, That dreaming youngster, with his tawny mane Of red-gold hair, and deep ethereal eyes, What odorous clouds of incense round him rose; Was conscious in the dimness, of great throngs Kneeling around him; shared in his own heart The music and the silence and the cry, _O, salutaris hostia!_--so now, There was no mortal conflict in his mind Between his dream-clocks and things absolute, And one far voice, most absolute of all, Feeble with suffering, calling night and day "_Return, return_;" the voice of his Celeste. All these things co-existed, and the less Were comprehended, like the swinging lamp, Within that great cathedral of his soul. Often he bade me, in that desolate house _Il Giojello_, of old a jewel of light, Read to him one sad letter, till he knew The most of it by heart, and while he walked His garden, leaning on my arm, at times I think he quite forgot that I was there; For he would quietly murmur it to himself, As if she had sent it, half an hour ago: "Now, with this little winter's gift of fruit I send you, father, from our southward wall, Our convent's rarest flower, a Christmas rose. At this cold season, it should please you much, Seeing how rare it is; but, with the rose, You must accept its thorns, which bring to mind Our Lord's own bitter Passion.