Introduction
Nicholas Copernicus
De Revolutionibus
John Dee
The Mathematicall Praeface
Robert Recorde
The Castle of Knowledge
Marcellus Palingenius Stellatus
The Zodiake of Life
Thomas Digges
A Perfect Description of the Celestial Orbs
Giordano Bruno
The Ash Wednesday Supper
Galileo Galilei
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
Ben Jonson
News From the New World Discovered in the Moon
John Donne
Loves Growth
John Donne
A Valediction: forbidding mourning
Bibliography
John Donne
I scarce beleeve my love to be so pure
As I had thought it was,
Because it doth endure
Vicissitude, and season, as the grasse;
Me thinkes I lyed all winter, when I swore,
My love was infinite, if spring make'it more.
But if this medicine, love, which cures all sorrow
With more, not onely bee no quintessence,
But mixt of all stuffes, paining soule, or sense,
And of the sunne his working vigour borrow,
Love's not so pure, and abstract, as they use
To say, which have no Mistresse but their Muse,
But as all else, being elemented too,
Love sometimes would contemplate, sometimes do.
And yet not greater, but more eminent,
Love by the spring is growne;
As, in the firmament,
Starres by the Sunne are not inlarg'd but showne.
Gentle love deeds, as blossomes on a bough,
From loves awaken'd root do bud out now.
If, as in water stir'd more circles bee
Produc'd by one, love such additions take,
Those like to many spheares, but one heaven make,
For, they are all concentrique unto thee.
And though each spring doe adde to love new heate,
As princes doe in times of action get
New taxes, and remit them not in peace,
No winter shall abate the springs encrease.
Copyright 1999, MATC
Last updated 20 January 2000