The Planets in Poetry

In response to new scientific ideas, several seventeenth-century poets wrote about the planets and the Earth’s position in the universe. Compare Pulter’s conception of the universe (and God’s role in creating it) to those by John Donne, Henry More, and Margaret Cavendish below.

John Donne
Excerpt from An Anatomy of the World

And new philosophy calls all in doubt,
The element of fire is quite put out,
The sun is lost, and th’earth, and no man's wit
Can well direct him where to look for it.
And freely men confess that this world’s spent,
When in the planets and the firmament
They seek so many new; they see that this
Is crumbled out again to his atomies.
’Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone,
All just supply, and all relation;
Prince, subject, father, son, are things forgot,
For every man alone thinks he hath got
To be a phoenix, and that then can be
None of that kind, of which he is, but he.

Source: PoetryFoundation.org, lines 205-218.

Henry More, Democritus Platonissans

I will not say our world is infinite,
But that infinity of worlds there be.
The Center of our world’s the lively light
Of the warm sun, the visible Deity
Of this external Temple. Mercury
Next plac’d and warm’d more th’roughly by his rays,
Right nimbly ’bout his golden head doth fly:
Then Venus nothing slow about him strays,
And next our Earth though seeming sad full sprightly plays.

And after her Mars rangeth in a round
With fiery locks and angry flaming eye,
And next to him mild Jupiter is found,
But Saturn cold wons in our outmost sky.
The skins of his large Kingdom surely lie
Near to the confines of some other worlds
Whose Centers are the fixed stars on high,
’Bout which as their own proper Suns are hurled
Joves, Earths, and Saturns; round on their own axes twirled.

Little or nothing are those stars to us
Which in the azure Evening gay appear
(I mean for influence) but judicious
Nature and careful Providence her dear
And matchless work did so contrive while ere,
That th’ Hearts or Centers in the wide world pight
Should such a distance each to other bear,
That the dull Planets with collated light
By neighbor suns might cheered be in dampish night.

And as the Planets in our world (of which
The sun's the heart and kernel) do receive
Their nightly light from suns that do enrich
Their sable mantle with bright gems, and give
A goodly splendor, and sad men relieve
With their fair twinkling rayes, so our world’s sun
Becomes a star elsewhere, and doth derive
Joint light with others, cheereth all that won
In those dim duskish Orbs round other suns that run.

This is the parergon of each noble fire
Of neighbor worlds to be the nightly star,
But their main work is vital heat t’ inspire
Into the frigid spheres that ’bout them fare
Which of themselves quite dead and barren are,
But by the wakening warmth of kindly days,
And the sweet dewy nights, they well declare
Their seminal virtue, in due courses raise
Long hidden shapes and life, to their great Maker’s praise.

These with their suns I several worlds do call,
Whereof the number I deem infinite:
Else infinite darkness were in this great Hall
Of th’ endless Universe; For nothing finite
Could put that immense shadow into flight.
But if that infinite Suns we shall admit,
Then infinite worlds follow in reason right.
For every Sun with Planets must be fit,
And have some mark for his far-shining shafts to hit.

[...]

The Center of each several world’s a Sun
With shining beams and kindly warming heat,
About whose radiant crown the Planets run,
Like reeling moths around a candle light.
These all together, one world I conceit.
And that even infinite such worlds there be,
That inexhausted Good that God is hight,
A full sufficient reason is to me,
Who simple Goodness make the highest Deity.

Source: More, Democritus Platonissans (London, 1646), sig. B3v-B7r, with spelling modernized.

Margaret Cavendish, A World in an Earring

An Earring round may well a Zodiac be,
Wherein a Sun goeth round, and we not see.
And Planets seven about that Sun may move,
And He stand still, as some wise men would prove.
And fixed Stars, like twinkling Diamonds, placed
About this Earring, which a World is vast.
That same which doth the Earring hold, the hole,
Is that, which we do call the Pole.
There nipping Frosts may be, and Winter cold,
Yet never on the Lady’s Ear take hold.
And Lightings, Thunder, and great Winds may blow
Within this Earring, yet the Ear not know.
There Seas may ebb, and flow, where Fishes swim,
And Islands be, where Spices grow therein.
There Crystal Rocks hang dangling at each Ear,
And Golden Mines as Jewels may they wear.
There Earthquakes be, which Mountains vast down fling,
And yet ne’er stir the Lady’s Ear, nor Ring.
There Meadows be, and Pastures fresh, and green,
And Cattle feed, and yet be never seen:
And Gardens fresh, and Birds which sweetly sing,
Although we hear them not in an Earring.
There Night, and Day, and Heat, and Cold, and so
May Life, and Death, and Young, and Old, still grow.
Thus Youth may spring, and several Ages die,
Great Plagues may be, and no Infections nigh.
There Cities be, and stately Houses built,
Their inside gay, and finely may be gilt.
There Churches be, and Priests to teach therein,
And Steeple too, yet hear the Bells not ring.
From thence may pious Tears to Heaven run,
And yet the Ear not know which way they're gone.
There Markets be, and things both bought, and sold,
Know not the price, nor how the Markets hold.
There Governors do rule, and Kings do Reign,
And Battles fought, where many may be slain.
And all within the Compass of this Ring,
And yet not tidings to the Wearer bring.
Within the Ring wise Counselors may sit,
And yet the Ear not one wise word may get.
There may be dancing all Night at a Ball,
And yet the Ear be not disturbed at all.
There Rivals Duels fight, where some are slain;
There Lovers mourn, yet hear them not complain.
And Death may dig a Lover’s Grave, thus were
A Lover dead, in a fair Lady’s Ear.
But when the Ring is broke, the World is done,
Then Lovers they into Elysium run.

Source: Cavendish, Poems and fancies (London, 1653), sig. G3r-G4v, with spelling modernized.