But his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young eyed cherubims:
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But while this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.”
He also speaks of it again in Pericles.
“Keppler’s idea of the universe was essentially Pythagorean and Platonic. He thought that the planetary movements were related to musical intervals.” (Cyclo. Brit.) Montaigne, Milton, Donne, Pope, Newton, Tycho-Brahe and others believed in the “music of the spheres.” Faber beautifully attributed it to the vibration caused by the shooting rays of light on their journey earthward:
“Thou art fugitive splendors made vocal
As they glanced from that shining sea.”
All are agreed that the idea has come down to us from the earliest times.