The English Discoverer of the Planet Neptune, Died at Cambridge, January 21st, 1892
God stretched His jewelled splendour far and wide
Above the Cornish moorlands, there He met
A boy, and from dark fallows dewy-wet
Bade him look up. He, scholar grown, espied
The wandering of lobe Uranus, and plied
Star-quest in heights abysmal, till his net
Of calculations intricate had set
Sure, but unseen, far Neptune at the side
Of that perturbéd planet. Then was hurled
Space from its throne, and distance was enchained,
And mind flung back the gates of ultimate gloom—
But little said the seeker, he who gained
Glory for England in his narrow room,
Wherein he searched the Heavens and found a world.
(Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 116)