The Galaxy or Milky Way
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The groundwork is of stars, through which the road
Lies open to the Thunderer's abode.
Lies open to the Thunderer's abode.
In Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice we read:
The floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold.
There 's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed Cherubim.
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold.
There 's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed Cherubim.
Sir John Suckling says:
Her face is like the Milky Way i' the sky,
A meeting of gentle lights without a name.
A meeting of gentle lights without a name.
In Milton's Paradise Lost there is this beautiful reference to the Galaxy:
A broad and ample road whose dust is gold
And pavement stars as stars to thee appear
Seen in the Galaxy, that Milky Way
Which nightly as a circling zone thou seest
Powdered with stars.
And pavement stars as stars to thee appear
Seen in the Galaxy, that Milky Way
Which nightly as a circling zone thou seest
Powdered with stars.
Longfellow thus alludes to the Milky Way in Hiawatha:
Showed the broad white road in heaven,
Pathway of the ghosts, the shadows.
Running straight across the heavens.
Crowded with the ghosts, the shadows,
To the kingdom of Ponemah,
To the land of the hereafter.
Pathway of the ghosts, the shadows.
Running straight across the heavens.
Crowded with the ghosts, the shadows,
To the kingdom of Ponemah,
To the land of the hereafter.
When Galileo directed his newly invented telescope at the Galaxy the mystery of its composition was solved. Myriads of stars strewed the fields as he swept over the misty belt, their blended light causing the white effect the unaided eye reveals.
Allen thus sums up our present knowledge of this remarkable object
"It covers more than one tenth of the visible heavens, containing more than nine tenths of the visible stars, and
