by Brett Rutherford
Adapted from Victor Hugo, l’Année Terrible, "April 1871"
Whether they just are, or are made that way,
some are inclined at all times to say to Nature:
Dark gulf, void, or abyss — whatever
your vastness calls itself, answer me this —
for what do we exist? Believers
or atheists, it is all the same for us.
We pile on top of Prometheus
the labors of the Euclids and Keplers.
Our doubts, our thought-clouds funereal
rise up to the heavens full of darkness,
only to come back down as jabs of light,
the storm-wrath of the ever-jealous one
who sits on a cold slab of ignorance.
O brother-brows, on which ideas flame!
At the edge of the abyss, so many lean
from the foothills of the heavens
with telescopic gaze, so many
extended hands reach up to grasp.
Who can read their mysterious looks?
O, the starry pupils of Milton divining,
while from their outer reaches the real stars burn
into the unblinking lens of Galileo.
Dark Dantes, sun-burned from over-seeing,
new stars should come to be where you scaled up.
Dark horses athwart Infinity,
you are the spirits of black Zoroasters.
Dare to go up, dare to descend.
Everything is there for you to discover.
Your name will be remembered for what
new thing you found or brought forth:
For Jason the great journey
against all odds; for De Gama
the will of wanting the ever-westward.
When the seeker still hesitates,
one eye on night, one holding forth for dawn;
when he at first recoils as the hieroglyph
yields up its secret meaning, the shade of doubt
takes hold, but then the will to know,
that sharp and abrupt hippogriff, [1]
appears in that twilight moment.
On such a formidable steed,
with human genius at the reins,
he approaches the unapproachable,
torch-lit, alone, the lute his only weapon.
And when he leaves, his spirit emaciated,
the star of Love, the sun of Thought
shine through the yawning azure
where night’s dark webs spin shut;
and God gave him these two shy stars
to serve as spurs upon the giant’s feet.
Great hearts in which the Infinite
creates itself, carve out a space
around themselves from which all others
flee. A sacred curiosity
possesses them in night and mountain waste.
Each new discovery takes the breath away,
as if an abyss lay always beyond.
The risk of death? What does that matter?
One plunges in, one suffers the price.
A life lived pointlessly is already too long.
From the insensible the sublime is born.
Declaring it, he puts the abyss behind him.
Columbus with only vague import
struggles toward the sad wisdom of Empedocles.
What is beneath the sea? What, in the heavens?
Their secrets shall be revealed.
Each of god’s seekers goes his way
on wingbeats uplifted by infinity.
As green waters part for Fulton’s steam-boat
and in the depths for the silent submarine,
Mars comes into focus for Herschel’s eyes.
Magellan circumnavigates the proven globe.
Fourier, on mere hot air, balloons away.
The crow, ironic and frivolous, denies
the dreamers’ achievements. “The boats will sink.”
“The balloon is forever lost and cannot come down.”
“Blasphemers! Their souls are damned.”
Fools! They have found other worlds!
[1] Hippogriff. The hippogriff is a mythical animal, half eagle, half horse. It is featured in the epic poem Orlando Furioso.
