other relics of a famous past in the Royal Observatory at Greenwich.
The Herschelian Telescope Song[1]
Requiem of the Forty-feet Reflector at Slough, to be sung on the
New Year's Eve, 1839-40, by Papa, Mama, Madame, and all
the Little Bodies in the tube thereof assembled:—
In the old Telescope's tube we sit,
And the shades of the past around us flit;
His requiem sing we, with shout and with din.
While the old year goes out and the new one comes in.
Chorus of Youths and Virgins.
Merrily, merrily, let us all sing.
And make the old Telescope rattle and ring.
Full fifty years did he laugh at the storm,
And the blast could not shake his majestic form;
Now prone he lies where he once stood high,
And searched the deep heavens with his broad bright eye.
Merrily, merrily, &c.
There are wonders no living wight hath seen.
Which within this hollow have pictured been;
Which mortal record can ne'er recall,
And are known to Him only who makes them all.
Merrily, merrily, &c.
Here watched our father the wintry Night,
And his gaze hath been fed with pre-Adamite light;
While planets above him in mystic[2] dance
Sent down on his toils a propitious glance.
Merrily, merrily, &c.
- ↑ Weld, History of the Royal Society, ii. 195.
- ↑ ? circular.
