And mocked him, bidding him take away the stones
That he had bought, for nothing else was his."
These things were fables. They were also true.
They thought him a magician, Tycho Brahe,
The astrologer, who wore the mask of gold.
Perhaps he was. There's magic in the truth;
And only those who find and follow its laws
Can work its miracles.
Tycho sought the truth
From that strange year in boyhood when he heard
The great eclipse foretold; and, on the day
Appointed, at the very minute even,
Beheld the weirdly punctual shadow creep
Across the sun, bewildering all the birds
With thoughts of evening.
Picture him, on that day,
The boy at Copenhagen, with his mane
Of thick red hair, thrusting his freckled face
Out of his upper window, holding the piece
Of glass he blackened above his candle-flame
To watch that orange ember in the sky
Wane into smouldering ash.
He whispered there,
"So it is true. By searching in the heavens,
Men can foretell the future."
In the street
Below him, throngs were babbling of the plague
That might or might not follow.
He resolved
To make himself the master of that deep art