Et les étoiles d'or, légions infinies, A voix haute, à voix basse, avec mille harmonies Disaient, en inclinant leurs couronnes de feu; Et les flots bleus, que rien ne gouverne et n'arrête, Disaient en recourbant l'écume de leur crête: ... C'est le Seigneur, le Seigneur Dieu! _Note: Free Translation_ I was alone on the waves, on a starry night, Not a cloud in the sky, not a sail in sight, My eyes pierced beyond the natural world... And the woods, and the hills, and the voice of Nature Seemed to question in a confused murmur, The waves of the Sea, and Heaven's fires. And the golden stars in infinite legion, Sang loudly, and softly, in glad recognition, Inclining their crowns of fire;... And the waves that naught can check nor arrest Sang, bowing the foam of their haughty crest... Behold the Lord God--Jehovah! The immortal poet of France was an astronomer. The author more than once had the honor of conversing with him on the problems of the starry sky--and reflected that astronomers might well be poets. It is indeed difficult to resist a sense of profound emotion before the abysses of infinite Space, when we behold the innumerable multitude of worlds suspended above our heads. We feel in this solitary contemplation of the Heavens that there is more in the Universe than tangible and visible matter: that there are forces, laws, destinies. Our ants' brains may know themselves microscopic, and yet recognize that there is something greater than the Earth, the Heavens;--more absolute than the Visible, the Invisible;--beyond the more or less vulgar affairs of life, the sense of the True, the Good, the Beautiful. We feel that an immense mystery broods over Nature,--over Being, over created things. And it is here again that Astronomy surpasses all the other sciences, that it becomes our sovereign teacher, that it is the _pharos_ of modern philosophy.