A tribute to Sir Patrick Moore, 4th March 1923 - 10th December 2012
Batty eccentric, Gentleman amateur
Clipped English tones, of an era gone by Dottiest ‘boffin’ and Crusty old Bachelor Pipe in your mouth and a glass in your eye
Terrible golfer, pussycat stroker,
Right-wing and radical, militant stoker
Serving the masses with lunar crevasses
Around for so long, gone away far too soon With an eminent place in our knowledge of space
As the man who made maps of the moon
The moon
As the man who made maps of the moon
You juggled gravity, built an observatory Gave a fried egg as a cosmic analogy Served up the feast well aware of the joke As we stared with you heavenward, viewing the yolk
Heavenly broker, grey matter poker
Martian and minstrel and avid Pipe smoker A voice and a knack with a rat a tat, tat Drilling deep in our minds to the great cosmic tune With dress sense to match, while you lifted the latch
As the man maps who made of the moon
The moon
As the man who made maps of the moon
Memories of empire, thoughts of old England Fade further now, as your atoms disperse In the final great joke of our temporariness And the black hole you left in our own universe
Where do atheists go when they no longer are?
When they pack up their trunk at the end of the show One could paraphrase you when you talked of the stars ‘As in so many cases, we simply don’t know’
With the feats of: Gagarin and Armstrong and all?
Amplified to the skies in the infinity’s thrall?
Yes you stayed for so long but you left far too soon Yet your legacy orbits our own consciousness
In the maps that you made of the moon
The moon
From the man who made maps of the moon