| |
| WHEN Dido feasted the wand’ring Trojan knight, | |
| Whom Juno’s wrath with storms did force in Libic sands to light; | |
| That mighty Atlas taught, the supper lasting long, | |
| With crisped locks on golden harp Iopas sang in song: | |
| ‘That same,’ quod he, ‘that we the World do call and name, | 5 |
| Of heaven and earth with all contents, it is the very frame. | |
| Or thus, of heavenly powers by more power kept in one; | |
| Repugnant kinds, in mids of whom the earth hath place alone; | |
| Firm, round, of living things the mother, place, and nurse; | |
| Without the which in equal weight, this heaven doth hold his course: | 10 |
| And it is call’d by name the first and moving heaven. | |
| The firmament is placed next, containing other seven. | |
| Of heavenly powers that same is planted full and thick, | |
| As shining lights which we call stars, that therein cleave and stick: | |
| With great swift sway, the first, and with his restless source, | 15 |
| Carrieth itself, and all those eight, in even continual course. | |
| And of this world so round within that rolling case, | |
| Two points there be that never move, but firmly keep their place: | |
| The one we see alway, the other stands object | |
| Against the same, dividing just the ground by line direct; | 20 |
| Which by imagination he drawen from one to t’other | |
| Toucheth the centre of the earth, for way there is none other: | |
| And these be call’d the poles, described by stars not bright: | |
| Arctic the one northward we see: Antarctic the other hight. | |
| The line, that we devise from the one to t’other so, | 25 |
| As axle is; upon the which the heavens about do go; | |
| Which of water nor earth, of air nor fire, have kind; | |
| Therefore the substance of those same were hard for man to find: | |
| But they been uncorrupt, simple, and pure unmixt; | |
| And so we say been all those stars, that in those same be fixt: | 30 |
| And eke those erring seven, in circle as they stray; | |
| So call’d, because against that first they have repugnant way; | |
| And smaller by-ways too, scant sensible to man; | |
| Too busy work for my poor harp; let sing them he that can. | |
| The widest save the first, of all these nine above, | 35 |
| One hundred year doth ask of space, for one degree to move. | |
| Of which degrees we make in the first moving heaven, | |
| Three hundred and threescore, in parts justly divided even. | |
| And yet there is another between those heavens two, | |
| Whose moving is so sly, so slack, I name it not for now. | 40 |
| The seventh heaven or the shell, next to the starry sky; | |
| All those degrees that gathereth up, with aged pace so sly: | |
| And doth perform the same, as elders’ count hath been, | |
| In nine and twenty years complete, and days almost sixteen; | |
| Doth carry in his bowt the star of Saturn old, | 45 |
| A threat’ner of all living things with drought and with his cold. | |
| The sixth whom this contains, doth stalk with younger pace, | |
| And in twelve year doth somewhat more than t’other’s voyage was: | |
| And this in it doth bear the star of Jove benign, | |
| ’Tween Saturn’s malice and us men, friendly defending sign. | 50 |
| The fifth bears bloody Mars, that in three hundred days | |
| And twice eleven with one full year hath finish’d all those ways. | |
| A year doth ask the fourth, and hours thereto six, | |
| And in the same the day his eye, the Sun, therein he sticks. | |
| The third that govern’d is by that that governs me, | 55 |
| And love for love, and for no love provokes, as oft we see, | |
| In like space doth perform that course, that did the other. | |
| So doth the next unto the same, that second is in order: | |
| But it doth bear the star, that call’d is Mercury; | |
| That many a crafty secret step doth tread, as calcars try. | 60 |
| That sky is last, and fix’d next us those ways hath gone, | |
| In seven-and-twenty common days, and eke the third of one; | |
| And beareth with his sway the divers Moon about; | |
| Now bright, now brown, now bent, now full, and now her light is out: | |
| Thus have they of their own two movings all these Seven; | 65 |
| One, wherein they be carried still, each in his several heaven: | |
| Another of themselves, where their bodies be laid | |
| In by-ways, and in lesser rounds, as I afore have said; | |
| Save of them all the Sun doth stray least from the straight: | |
| The starry sky hath but one course, that we have call’d the eight. | 70 |
| And all these movings eight are meant from west to east; | |
| Although they seem to climb aloft, I say from east to west. | |
| But that is but by force of their first moving sky, | |
| In twice twelve hours from east to east, that carrieth them by and by: | |
| But mark we well also, these movings of these seven | 75 |
| Be not above the axletree of the first moving heaven. | |
| For they have their two poles directly the one to the other,’ &c. | |
| |
