Note A — Early Poems (continued 2)
Reading edition
If the poem were not already too long, I should have inserted in the text the following stanzas, expressive of the joy wherewith the soul contemplated the results of astronomical experiment. In the centre of the four quadrangles rose an immense tower.
Hither, when all the deep unsounded skies Shuddered with silent stars she clomb, And as with optic glasses her keen eyes Pierced thro’ the mystic dome, Regions of lucid matter taking forms, Brushes of fire, hazy gleams, Clusters and beds of worlds, and bee-like swarms Of suns, and starry streams. She saw the snowy poles of moonless Mars, That marvellous round of milky light Below Orion, and those double stars Whereof the one more bright Is circled by the other, etc.