The World Goes Round Poem by John a'Beckett

The World Goes Round



A stirring in our conscience bids
church bells clear the snow-filled air,
in peel reveal on Starszek Square,
Warszawa’s fickle, earnest fuss,
one Nicolas Copernicus, the timid
Canon, father of astronomy, his
statue now holds up for us-not
to disturb our globe, off course-
his turbulatory astrolabe, amid
the wild cacophony of cars.

While Tycho de Brahe, Rechitus
fought out the final facts for us in
their Renaissance and dramatic acts
his feet are deep in world of rule,
strict stasis, mediaeval school.
No wish to smash glass-spherical
Ptolemaic Universe, set it aspin
or prick the sun-centred galaxy in
only explain, pedestrian, the mild
movement of our distant stars.

As mediaeval bells resound, Nic’s
feet copernically are on the ground
Our canon of hypothesis lets traffic
at his feet to prove his theory true,
a guess become a blessed fact
and so the world goes round.

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