eather with angels wing
The sluggish arrow. If it will not flie,
Sent out from bow stiff-bent with even string,
Let angels on their backs it thither bring
Where your free mind appointed had before,
And then hold on, till in your travelling
You be well wearied, finding ever more
Free passage for their flight, and what they flying bore.

39

Now to that shift that sayes Vacuity
Is nought, and therefore not at all extent
We answer thus: There is a distancy
In empty space, though we be well content
To balk that question (for we never meant
Such needlesse niceties) whether that it be
A reall being; yet that there's parts distent
One from another, no mans phantasie
Can e're reject if well he weigh't and warily.

40

For now conceive the aire and azure skie
All swept away from Saturn to the Sunne,
Which each is to be wrought by him on high.
Then in this place let all the Planets runne
(As erst they did before this feat was done)
If not by nature, yet by divine power,
Ne one hairs breadth their former circuits shun
And still for fuller proof, th' Astronomer
Observe their hights as in the empty heavens they scoure.

41

Will then their Parallaxes prove all one
Or none, or different still as before?
If so, their distances by mortall men
Must be acknowledg'd such as were of yore,
Measur'd by leagues, miles, stades, nor lesse nor more
From circuit unto circuit shall be found
Then was before the sweeping of the floor.
That distance therefore hath most certain ground
In emptinesse we may conclude with reason sound.

42

If distance now so certainly attend
All emptinesse (as also mensuration
Attendeth distance) distance without end
Is wide disperst above imagination
(For emptinesse is void of limitation)
And this unbounded voidnesse doth admit
The least and greatest measures application;
The number thus of the greatest that doth fit
This infinite void space is likewise infinite.

43

But what so e're that infinite number be,
A lesser number will a number give
So farre exceeding in infinity
That number as this measure we conceive
To fall short of the other. But I'll leave
This present way and a new course will trie
Which at the same mark doth as fully drive
And with a great deal more facility.
Look on th