Poem: A Cento of Scientists
by Ursula K. Le Guin
Alternating lines from Charles Darwin,
Galileo Galilei, and Giordano Bruno
There is grandeur
The sun with all the circling planets it sustains
God is glorified and the greatness of his kingdom made manifest
in this view of life
the sun with all the circling planets yet
glorified not in one but in countless suns
from so simple a beginning endless forms
the sun with all the planets it sustains yet can ripen a bunch
of grapes
not in a single earth, a single world, but in a thousand thousand
endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful
the sun can ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in
the universe to do
not in a single world but in a thousand thousand, an infinity
of worlds
endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been
and are being evolved
as if it had nothing else in the universe to do
All things are in the universe, and the universe is in all things,
we in it and it in us
There is grandeur in this view of life
“A Cento of Scientists” by Ursula K. Le Guin
Used by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.
Copyright © 2018