19 notes &
IN HONOR OF THE ITALIAN EARTHQUAKE SCIENTISTS CONVICTED OF MANSLAUGHTER* (Please click on Arrow to Play Song)
Did Galileo Pray?
When he looked
Into a starry sky upon Jupiter,
With its cold moons
Making their weary rounds.
Did he know that the Pope
Would claim that he ran with Lucifer
And a prison cell
Would be where he’d lay his head down?
Was he wearing a thorny crown?
When he plotted the motion of planets,
Was Mercury in retrograde?
But he found the truth when a lie was what was demanded.
When the judges asked him pointedly
He was a’ trembling that day.
Did Galileo pray?
And he said,
“Tell Ptolemy, tell Copernicus,
That the Sun is at the core of us
The Church, the Pope
Can’t deny the Milky Way
And every flower that follows the sun,
Has known all along
What God had done
They whisper truth
As the seasons each give way.”
Don’t shoot the messenger,
The postman delivers Truth today.
And Truth will march in Birmingham
It will block the tanks in Tiananmen.
Put the judges on the witness stand
Let’s see what they all say.
In the heavens you’ll see it
As God has conceived it.
Oh, believe it.
Oh, what have you got to do to believe?
(Composed and performed by Ellis Paul)
Image: Galileo before the Holy Office, a 19th century painting by Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury
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*Editors’ Note: Earthquakes are impossible to predict. Click here to read more.
*For more information on Galileo’s 1633 trial, click here. Who would have predicted a repeat 379 years later?
