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BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN ANTHEM. 
 
 THE BEATITUDES IN RHYTHMIC ECHOES. 
 
 BY WILLIAM C. RICHARDS. 
 
 Elegantly bound in cloth, full gilt, $1.60; or in tlie beautiful 
 
 "Golden Floral" stqie. Covers in colors. Gilded, 
 
 fringed, and tasselled, $1.76. 
 
 The Beatitudes, or Christ'.s "Sermon on the Mount," constitute, 
 perhaps, one of the most familiar passages in Sacred Scripture. 
 Embodying, as they do, all the graces of true manhood and woman- 
 hood, it is not to be wondered at that they have so often inspired the 
 minister and the poet. The cordial approval which was bestowed 
 upon Professor Richards's versified interpretation of David's sweet- 
 est psalm induced him to apply the same spirit and method to the 
 Beatitudes. His rendering is, indeed, but " rhythmic echoes;" but 
 they are echoes which appeal lovingly to all devoted and submissive 
 hearts. Miss Humphrey's illustrations are full of expression. 
 
 THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD. 
 
 THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM IN SONG AND SONNET. 
 
 BY WILLIAM t. RICHARDS. 
 
 Elegantly bound in clotli, full gilt, $1.50; or in the beautiful 
 
 "Golden Floral" style. Covers in colors. Gilded, 
 
 Jringed, and tasselled, $1.75. 
 
 Many eminent clergymen and laymen who have examined either 
 the manuscript or the advance sheets ha\e e.vpressed their cordial 
 approval and admiration of the design, spirit, and manner of the 
 work. The pastoral simplicity of the .sweetest of all the Psalms is 
 wrought into the several poems with a charming effect. The work is 
 ornamented with"" si.vteen fuU-p.ige illustrations by Miss Humphrey 
 and other female artists. .Such a volume, superb in every feature, 
 cannot but afford pleasure and s]>irilual nutriment to many thousands 
 of readers. 
 
 Sold by all booksellers, and sent by mail, postpaid, on receipt 
 of price. 
 
 LEE AND SHEPARD, Publishers. 
 
SCIENCE IN SONG 
 
 NATURE IN NUMBERS 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM C. RICHARDS, A.M., Ph.D. 
 
 2 
 
 " Sweet Nature, gilded by the gracious gleam 
 Of letters dear to Science, dear to Art." 
 
 Tennvson. 
 
 " Science has not destroyed Poetry, nor expelled the Divine from 
 Nature, but has furnished the material and given the presages of 
 a higher poetry and a mightier philosophy than the world has yet 
 seen." — Dr. Henry Maui>slev. 
 
 ^ NOV 26 1884/1 
 
 BOSTON ^<^fw^sw^^^ 
 LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS' 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM 
 
 i88t; 
 

 COFVRIGHT, 1884, 
 
 Bv LEE AND SHEPARD. 
 
 All rights reser^'ed. 
 
m AYAJ^T. 
 
 Sliall Science win no meed of song, 
 To wtiom all harmonies belong, 
 
 And poets' praises, 
 Her realm the v^ide expanse of light, 
 "While to the outer stars her flight 
 
 Our knowledge raises? 
 
 Oh for the voice of seraphim 
 
 To breathe a high and worthy hymn 
 
 By inspiration ! 
 Her themes of wonder to expand. 
 Her trophies meet for Milton's grand 
 
 IDelineation. 
 
 "With v^it my -wishes far outrun, 
 I dedicate Love's labor done 
 
 To STAR-EYED SCIENCE, 
 And on the grandeur of her scope. 
 To please my reader, fix my hope 
 
 And sole reliance. 
 
PREFATORY. 
 
 To say, in the preface of this book, that writing 
 verse has been the author's recreation in the brief 
 intervals of grave and oftentimes exhausting profes- 
 sional labor, would be a fitting apology for its presen- 
 tation to his personal friends only ; but to make this 
 representation to the public may not avail to satisfy 
 that exacting community of its raison ({''etrc. 
 
 It happens, however, that his verse-writing, which 
 has been in a sense his pastime, does not include 
 this little volume, which, as its themes will suggest to 
 the intelligent reader, required more than moments of 
 leisure and relaxation for its preparation. 
 
 It is generally though erroneously supposed that 
 philosophy and poetry in union are incongruous, and 
 
Vlll PREFATORY. 
 
 perhaps the fortunate examples of their combination 
 are too few to be pleaded in refutation of this impres- 
 sion. There is certainly but little Science in Song in 
 our literature. The volumes of poetry devoted to 
 scientific themes may be counted, probably, on one's 
 fingers, beginning a century ago with " The Botanic 
 Garden," by Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of the 
 late distinguished naturalist and biologist, Charles 
 Darwin, the author of books (though not in rhythm) 
 unhappily burdened with the apocryphal theories of 
 " Evolution," and the " Descent of Man " from lower 
 types of animal life. 
 
 A century, therefore, of remarkable science devel- 
 opment and progress, and abounding, also, in poets 
 both major and minor in rank, has not been prolific 
 in i)oems devoted to science. Poems of nature are, 
 indeed, exceedingly numerous, and constitute a rich 
 and prominent portion of the anthology of the nine- 
 teenth century. 
 
 The paucity of metrical interpretations of the prin- 
 ciples and laws of natural science is due to two 
 causes, — the general unfamiliarity with these laws 
 and their effects, and, beyond this, the prevailing im- 
 
PREFATORY. IX 
 
 pression, already referred to, of the unfitness of such 
 material for poetical form and fervor. 
 
 A different perception of the relations of the phi- 
 losophy of nature to poetry — the highest form of 
 expression in language — is th^ author's self-justifica- 
 tion for publishing this attempt to intertwine the mar- 
 vels of Science with the measures of Song ; and he 
 hopes to reach, as his best reward, the hearts of many 
 earnest readers, and, it may be, to lead them 
 
 "To look through nature up to nature's God." 
 Chicago, Oct. 18, 18S4. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 En Avant iii 
 
 Science in Song i 
 
 Steam . 5 
 
 The Song of Steam ..".... 5 
 
 Electricity 10 
 
 The Song of the Amber Sprite . . . 12 
 
 The Spectroscope 16 
 
 The Song of the Prism 17 
 
 Magnetism 22 
 
 The Song of the Magnet .... 28 
 
 Oxygen 31 
 
 The Song of Oxygen 32 
 
 Hydrogen 36 
 
 The Song of Hydrogen 37 
 
 Heat 41 
 
 The Song of Heat 43 
 
Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Telescope 46 
 
 The Lay of the Telescope . . . . 51 
 
 Carbon 56 
 
 The Story of Carbon 57 
 
 The Sun 64 
 
 Our Debt to the Sun 66 
 
 The Stars 74 
 
 Hymn to the Stars T] 
 
 The Comet 81 
 
 Owed to Coggia's Comet .... 84 
 
 The March of Science 91 
 
 Science and Song not Divorced ... 93 
 
 The Outlook of the Hour .... 98 
 
 My Oracle .104 
 
 L'Envoi 107 
 
 My Science 109 
 
 Notes . . .■ in 
 
SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 I SING the fame of lustrous Science, won 
 In many a field that lies from Earth to Sun, — 
 A hundred trophies with no mantling stain, 
 Grand victories the sword could never gain ; 
 Not regal pride, nor warlike greed, to sate ; 
 Not selfish love to serve, nor vengeful hate;' 
 Not realm or state in boundaries to extend, 
 But the wide world to bless from end to end, — 
 Conquests that conquer enmities and feuds, 
 That soften strifes, and people solitudes. 
 Make the drear desert fragrant with the rose. 
 And gleams of universal peace disclose. 
 
 A hundred trophies to my theme belong, 
 Effulgent Science, meet for crown and song ; 
 
2 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 And these the suns, apart from thousands less, 
 Whose planet-radiance on oar paths we bless. 
 For if with awe we trace among the stars 
 Her footfalls in their mystic spectral bars. 
 Her subtle skill the comet's bulk that weighs, 
 And turns its terrors to a harmless haze ; 
 Gauges the depths where unseen planets roll, 
 And binds lone Neptune to the Sun's con- 
 trol ; ^ 
 Resolves to figures that we shrink to say. 
 The mad pulsations of the violet ray;^ 
 Sifts the murk gloom the expiring red that 
 
 bounds, 
 Till metals flash like suns in its profounds ; '» 
 Or, in the void beyond the sky-born tints, 
 Plucks the weird force the chemic page that 
 
 prints ; ^ 
 Catches the lightnings on their fulgent wings. 
 And tones their voices to our common things. 
 When, needing messengers to send afar. 
 With blazing breath they answer, "Here we 
 
SCfENCR IN SONG. 3 
 
 If these grand exploits with amaze we see, 
 While yet unveiled hides half their mystery, 
 In lighter marvels with relief we scan 
 The household bounties Science yields to man. 
 
 Innumerous these as autumn's wind-tossed 
 
 leaves, 
 Or precious grain that droops her yellow 
 
 sheaves. 
 The glowing gas by which these lines I trace, 
 Long-prisoned image of the Sun's bright face, 
 Set free by Science from its carbon cell, 
 Turns night to day, and waste to wealth as 
 
 well, 
 Whose subtle breath, to be a blessing quite, 
 Needs yet, that, like itself, its cost he light, 
 Lest soon in all our homes the electric slips 
 Of Edison its fainter glow eclipse ; 
 Or carbon candles, a la Jablochkoff,^ 
 With their weird splendor biu'n its profits off ; 
 Or, likelier still, the dynamos of Brush, 
 Or Siemens' engines, rout it with a rush, — 
 
4 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 Till gas-Stocks fall, and dividends, alas ! 
 That once were gold, shall turn out only gas. 
 Be wise, ye gas-men, put it on the street, 
 A dollar for a thousand cubic feet ; ^ 
 And then, in spite of Maxim, new or old, 
 Or Menlo Park, your gas shall still be gold. 
 
 Nor light alone, but warmth, from Science 
 
 comes. 
 In tropic airs to demi-arctic homes, 
 Where subterranean ^tnas vent their fires. 
 And heat's old romance in their blast expires. 
 The cheerful grate, so grateful once, we miss. 
 And back-logs huge no longer snap and hiss ; 
 But Science keeps our chambers free from 
 
 dust, 
 And all our registers pronounce her just. 
 
STEAM. 
 
 STEAM. 
 
 In the caprices of a winter dream, 
 I saw fair Science in the guise of Steam. 
 I knew her right the airy mask to wear ; 
 Her vapory breath imbued the cool crisp 
 
 air ; 
 In silvery mists, half lucent as they rolled. 
 She floated round me in each filmy fold. 
 And swaying to and fro, like Brocken wraith,'' 
 She sang: this carol of her life and faith: — 
 
 THE SONG OF STEAM. 
 
 I was born of Fire and Water ; 
 
 My father and mother are they ; 
 And theirs is a wonderful daughter, 
 
 At work or at play. 
 
SCIENCE IN SONC. 
 
 I drew in a homely tea-kettle 
 
 The first storied gasp of my breath,"" 
 And, loosed from a prison of metal, 
 
 I vanish in death. 
 
 The stronger the walls of my prison. 
 The fiercer I grow in my strength, 
 
 From the womb of the water uprisen, 
 A giant at length, — 
 
 A giant with man for my master. 
 To slave at his bidding and beck. 
 
 At the slight little risk of disaster, 
 With ruin and wreck. 
 
 I prove him the myths of old fable : 
 In fleetness and force unconfined. 
 
 Upborne on my wings, he is able 
 To outstrip the wind. 
 
 The mightiest blows of Thor's hammer " 
 I help his right arm to excel : 
 
STEAM. y 
 
 The anvils of Vulcan in clamor 
 He silences well. 
 
 The continents narrow and dwindle 
 Before the wild rush of his steed, 
 
 In whose iron bosom I kindle 
 A passion for speed. 
 
 I wrested from Neptune his trident, 
 That man might rule over the deep ; 
 
 And his ships, breathing fire, go strident 
 On billows asleep. 
 
 Oh ! I am the bond-slave of Science, 
 And shrink from no labor for man : 
 
 I breathe to his foes his defiance. 
 And slay where I can. 
 
 No pride in my heart makes me falter, 
 Though menial the task he demands : 
 
 Not his horse is more true to his halter 
 Than I to his hands. 
 
SCIENCE TN SONG. 
 
 His ploughshares and weapons I fashion 
 For harvests of bread or of blood ; 
 
 My breath's the hot blast of his passion ; 
 I toil for his food. 
 
 I open his paths through the mountains 
 In resonant archways of stone ; 
 
 His cities are sweet with my fountains 
 From great lakes upthrown. 
 
 I stamp the bright coins of his treasures, 
 I break the rude stones of his street, 
 
 I slave in the gloomy coal-measures 
 Far under his feet. 
 
 I sink the deep mines when Fm bidden. 
 And marshal his gnomes to their toils, 
 
 Where the gold and the silver lie hidden. 
 To gather rich spoils. 
 
 The stern blasts of winter I soften 
 To airs of the South in his homes, 
 
STEAM. C 
 
 And his swift-winged coaches as often 
 Keep warm as he roams. 
 
 When the fervor of midsummer kindles, 
 I drive the cool wind through his halls : 
 
 My zeal, like my vigor, ne'er dwindles. 
 Though redoubled his calls. 
 
 If he plots with the masters of Science 
 The lightnings to yoke to his task, 
 
 They serve him with me in alliance. 
 Nor come till I ask. 
 
 Ungrudging I work, and unshrinking, 
 While service and succor man needs ; 
 
 And the force will come late, I am thinking. 
 That Steam supersedes. 
 
lO SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 ELECTRICITY. 
 
 "A RAILWAY-STATION and a summer night," — 
 Thus might the title read of what I write. 
 I waited for a train behind its time ; 
 And such delay our habit counts a crime, 
 Which in our grandsires' day had brought no 
 
 trace 
 Of vexed impatience on his placid face. 
 To while the weary hour, I tried in vain 
 To catch some tidings of the tardy train. 
 The telegraph, upon its guarded shelf, 
 Clicked now and then, as chuckling to itself. 
 My untrained ear had not the facile sense 
 To catch the sounds, and sift some meaning 
 
 thence ; 
 But while I listened with a listless will, 
 A violet haze appeared the place to fill : 
 
ELECTRICITY. 1 1 
 
 The brazen register to giant form 
 
 Grew, like a thunder-cloud before a storm. 
 
 I started, less with terror than surprise, 
 
 As now the shape bent on me glistening 
 
 eyes ; 
 Around his brow a filmy fillet twined 
 Of fitful flames, as fanned by fickle wind ; 
 Within his hands gleamed javelins of strange 
 
 light, 
 Which rayed weird splendors out upon the 
 
 night ; 
 And while the wonder grew, my heart beat 
 
 quick 
 To hear from out his breast the well-known 
 
 click. 
 When suddenly, instead, a witching strain 
 Of music soothed me like a summer rain ; 
 And then I knew the spirit of the wires 
 Was chanting to me from electric lyres 
 A strain more sweet than that of fabled 
 
 birds, 
 Somehow translated to me in these words : — 
 
12 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 THE SONG OF THE AMBER-SPRITE. 
 
 Shall I tell you, O dreamer ! my story, 
 To while the dull lapse of the night ? 
 
 Men see but faint gleams of the glory 
 That crowns me Electron '^ the Bright. 
 
 I was born ere the granites were moulded, 
 Or the gems in earth's coronal set. 
 
 While the wings of the morning were folded 
 O'er chaos and darkness as yet. 
 
 I fused the bright gems to their splendor, 
 I wrought the hard granites to form, 
 
 I fashioned the dewdrops so tender. 
 
 With the force that enkindled the storm. 
 
 Though I spoke with the tones of the thunder, 
 And looked in the lightnings abroad, 
 
 Men gauged not the scope of my wonder, 
 And shrunk from the flash of my sword. 
 
 Asleep in a beautiful chamber, 
 A sage of the days long ago 
 
ELECTRICITY. 1 3 
 
 Beheld me through lattice of amber, 
 Yet little he learned of me so.'^ 
 
 Along the slow march of the ages, 
 'Mid the records of History's hand. 
 
 That blazoned or blackened her pages, 
 Unstoried for eras I stand.'* 
 
 Then Science sprang up like a giant. 
 And warmed with the wine of desire, 
 
 To phantoms of mystery defiant. 
 She bade them unmask, or retire. 
 
 I heard, and, the bolts of my thunder 
 Despoiled of their terrible might, 
 
 I ran, in the trance of my wonder, 
 Down the cord of a venturous kite's 
 
 That kite, in the hand of my master. 
 The spell of my mystery broke ; 
 
 And service henceforth for disaster 
 I yield as I bow to his yoke. 
 
14 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 The myths of his boyhood I fashion 
 To marvels surpassing their fame, 
 
 Old fables of power and passion 
 
 Transformed into truths, yet the same. 
 
 What was Mercury else than a presage 
 
 Of me, as I run to and fro, 
 And girdle the globe with man's message, 
 
 Or glide with it broad seas below ? 
 
 The touch of King Midas'^ the Golden 
 Prefigured my work in the cell. 
 
 Where the exquisite parable olden 
 In tangible beauty I tell. 
 
 The fable of Fine-Ear, translated 
 To fact in the telephone's wire. 
 
 Is marvel of mine, only mated 
 With my currents of legible fire. 
 
 And soon with miraculous splendor 
 The cities of Earth I shall light, 
 
ELECTRICITY. 
 
 15 
 
 And mortals new praises shall render, 
 And thanks to Electron the Bright. 
 
 My song on my Hjds faints and lingers, 
 So broad are the trophies I scan. 
 
 When the marvellous touch of my fingers 
 Has wrought all the wonders it can. 
 
 For I am the king of the forces. 
 Of sway in the earth and the sea ; 
 
 And infinite suns, in their courses. 
 Keep step to their music through me. 
 
1 6 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 THE SPECTROSCOPE. 
 
 One day in June, beneath a London sky, 
 Blue, for the nonce, as that of Italy, 
 I pressed with eager haste to catch the sun — 
 Unveiled some favored hours from smoke- 
 drifts dun — 
 In the great glass that from fair Tulse-hill's 
 
 dome '7 
 Lifts its broad mirror to his fulgent home, 
 Where Huggins, with keen spectroscopic zest, 
 Rends the rare secrets from the solar breast. 
 Bidden of his large courtesy, I went 
 On hydrogen and nickel lines intent. 
 Swift through the ponderous tube the errant ray 
 Shot down in many a bright, divergent way, 
 As from the spectrum's red to violet's bound 
 The sorcerer turned his crystal prisms round. 
 
THE SPECTROSCOPE. 1/ 
 
 The noontide fervor and the wildering light, 
 It must have been they dazed my sober 
 
 sight ; 
 For to my view uprose a prismy form, 
 Robed as in rainbows woven of the storm. 
 I caught the fringe of her diaphanous robe, 
 Eager the riddle to its core to probe ; 
 But, all confused, I blundered at the start : 
 Quite guiltless of the interviewer's art, 
 I asked the radiant maid (I shudder now 
 At my impertinence), " How old art thou ? " 
 Her rainbow raiment rustled with surprise. 
 And a sweet anger warmed her violet eyes ; 
 Yet with angelic grace she veiled her ire. 
 And flashed this answer in prismatic fire: — 
 
 THE SONG OF THE PRISM. 
 
 How old am I .'' Ah ! who shall say ? 
 
 Old as the sun's first golden ray 
 
 That through the raindrops cleft its way 
 
1 8 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 In days when Time was young, 
 And tinted bow in heaven was bent, — 
 The smile of God, His sacrament, 
 To chastened earth, of wrath outspent, 
 
 As Hebrew sung. 
 
 A million rainbows on the sky 
 I painted as the years rolled by, 
 With rapture for the poet's eye,'^ 
 
 And God's dear peace for all ; 
 And Time by eras glided on. 
 While still the bow of promise shone, 
 With naught of my deep secret known, 
 
 Through cloudy pall. 
 
 Yet I was then the lucent prism ; 
 
 And the slant sunray through my chrism 
 
 Sprang forth from its divine baptism, — 
 
 God's covenant with men. 
 Carved from the crystal now by skill, 
 I fashion rainbow beauties still. 
 While subtler miracles I fulfil, 
 
 Undreamed of then. 
 
THE SPECTROSCOPE. 
 
 In Newton's hand I broke the spell 
 Of silence Nature kept so well, 
 And made the arrowy light-beam tell 
 
 The mystery of its mould ; "^ 
 Unwound its twisted thread to seven, 
 Like the fair arch that spans the heaven, 
 Of broader truth the kindling leaven 
 
 Thence to unfold. 
 
 As the small acorn holds the oak. 
 Whose rounded crest long years invoke. 
 By slow degrees the splendor broke. 
 
 Fore-signed in rainbows bright. 
 Not Newton plucked both flower and fruit 
 His Memnon to his touch grew mute, 
 And Science stayed her far pursuit 
 
 Of phantom light. 
 
 Deep in my lucent bosom lay. 
 
 To wake from charmed trance one day. 
 
 When some keen glance the hidden way 
 
 19 
 
20 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 Into its maze divines,^" 
 A volume of transcendent lore, 
 Unread of mortal eyes before, — 
 A scroll of splendor, blotted o'er 
 
 With mystic lines. 
 
 Now in my tell-tale face the skies 
 Mirror their long-veiled mysteries : 
 From sun and star the shadow flies, 
 
 More eloquent than light ; 
 Each line a language that betrays 
 The temper of the starry clays. 
 Made up, at most, in Earth's old ways, 
 
 If read aright. 
 
 What marvel that the untliinking doubt 
 The secrets in my breast found out, — 
 All the deep realms of space about, 
 
 Where thoue;ht and si<;ht mav range ! 
 Yet on my guileless face in vain 
 Their vague unfaith shall breathe its stain ; 
 Its lustre glows undimmed again : 
 
 Truth knows no change. 
 
THE SPECTROSCOPE. 21 
 
 No earth-enkindled flame that glows, 
 No ray from stellar fount that flows, 
 But shall its secret source disclose 
 
 At my confessional. 
 Linked with the lens, throughout all space 
 The fashions of the suns I'll trace, 
 And paint their legends on my face, 
 
 In light for all. 
 
22 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 MAGNETISM. 
 
 Give ear, I pray you, to a fable old, 
 By Pliny, in his Roman legends, told 
 Of a young shepherd of Magnesia born, 
 Who kept his father's flock with crook and 
 
 horn, 
 And led them at high noon to shaded fount, 
 Which welled in music's flow from Ida's 
 
 Mount. 
 One day the lad, his feeding flock in sight, 
 Climbed in caprice a neighboring rocky height, 
 When sudden fright his stalwart body shook ; 
 For hob-nailed shoes and iron-pointed crook, 
 Fast to the rock, like limpets to a cliff, 
 But for his tremors, held him fast and stiff. 
 Of all the loadstone feats old legends trace, 
 This one of Magncs holds the foremost place, ^' 
 
MAGNETISM 23 
 
 But leaves our wonder, I am fain to say, 
 In doubt to settle Junv he got away. 
 I give no date for this attractive tale : 
 Hence critics chronological will fail 
 If they dispute my postulate that here 
 The A B C of Magnetism's clear. 
 
 Fragments, perchance, of that enchanted 
 rock, 
 By curious pilgrims hammered from the block, 
 In rare museums and in monkish cells, 
 Spread far and wide the fame of magic spells. 
 When mimic boats with iron at their bows 
 On mimic lakes advanced their tiny prows, 
 As at the brink the conjurer held the stone, 
 But seemed to draw them by his will alone. 
 Thus Science, in those dim and distant days, 
 Shrouded in films of fear, or blank amaze, 
 From cautious or from curious eyes retired. 
 Nor with an ardent love the age inspired. 
 E'en subtle Thales, the Ionian sage, 
 The foremost savant of his clime and age, 
 
24 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 Who gauged the pyramids with shadow-rules, 
 And founded great Greek philosophic schools, 
 Yet, like a child of some new toy possessed, 
 Trifled one day with a most royal guest. 
 The potent spirit of the thunder-storm 
 Appeared to him in soft bewitching form, 
 Wrapped in a glittering veil of amber wove. 
 She proffered him the visored bolts of Jove. 
 He, with the pretty mask content to play. 
 The tricksy sprite offended, fled away, 
 And left her amber guise alone to be 
 For ages the vague veil of mystery.-^ 
 And great Sir Isaac, in our modern time. 
 Made, and yet missed at once, a step sub- 
 lime 
 In that grand quest for truth, to cease no 
 
 more 
 Till height and depth remain not to explore ; 
 Though often still, no doubt, a while to halt. 
 As wit, or way, or wisdom lies at fault. 
 Which baffled Newton in the case at hand, 
 You from recital brief shall understand. 
 
MAUXE'JVSM. 25 
 
 Two hundred years ago, o'er all the earth 
 Light broke anew as of a second birth, 
 When Newton in his prism empaled its 
 
 gleam, 
 And into seven bright hues dissolved the 
 
 beam. 
 The sage, transported, saw the ruptured ray 
 Its pictured image on the wall portray. 
 And paused his quest, the startled world to tell 
 The horoscope of light he'd cast so well. 
 O fatal halt ! that sevenscore years held back ^' 
 The march triumphant on that lucent track. 
 Too imcch and yet too little light from heaven 
 At that high hour supreme to him was given, — 
 Too little only that too viuch befell ; 
 Mark, and this riddle I'll resolve you well. 
 Sunlight in clustered rays too copious stole 
 On the dense crystal through a rounded hole. 
 And, all dissolved, their images o'erlapped. 
 And their solution in pure colors wrapped. 
 With the device of far less light let in, 
 Cleft to a slender shaft through crevice thiu; 
 
26 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 The conscious prism at that sovran call, 
 Had told, not half the truth alone, but all. 
 What matter, save for Newton's perfect fame ? 
 Two centuries late we have it, all the same,^* 
 And subtle prisms on the spectrum show 
 What's in the light of all the suns we know. 
 
 The orator, by some side-light betrayed, 
 Has often from his theme a trifle strayed ; 
 And what in him your lenience would excuse. 
 You'll deal with gently in the errant Muse, 
 Since to her shepherd -boy on Ida's brow, 
 To find the thread she dropped, she hastens now. 
 
 That myth of Magnes farther on we trace 
 In legend of Mohammed's burial-place. 
 His coffin hung the earth and sky between, 
 Poised cloudlike in the air, at twilight seen. 
 The silly tale the Moslem bosom fired, 
 And in the Prophet's name new faith ins})ired : 
 The outside world, with wonder for belief, 
 Its doubt to Science lifted for relief, 
 
MAGNETISM. 2 7 
 
 When Burkhardt sought the mosque in which 
 
 •he died, 
 And proved beyond dispute the legend — lied ! 
 Thus cunning fable fades the truth before, 
 As time and story sj^eed the centuries o'er. 
 And the wild visions of Arabian Nights 
 Pale in the blaze of science-kindled lights. 
 What did not hold the shepherd by his heels 
 Can stop to-day the train's swift-circling wheels, 
 Or chain the iron fire-ship to the quay. 
 And task her engines strained to set her 
 
 free. 
 
 Reclined upon the " Egypt's " deck I lay, 
 Close by her binnacle, one sultry day ; 
 No air astir save what the great ship drew 
 On every side, as through the foam she flew. 
 The sun and silence lulled me that I fell 
 Into a dream, or some bewildering spell ; 
 For murmurs heard but then through all the 
 
 ship, 
 Grew mute, like Fear with finger on her lip, 
 
28 SCIEA'CE IN SONG. 
 
 And sunk to rest the endless vibrant play 
 Of Titan engines throbbing" night and day. 
 I marked, amazed, Ixion at the wheel, 
 And saw a purple cloud about him steal ; 
 Which fading from my sight, there shone 
 
 instead 
 A violet nimbus o'er the compass shed. 
 Out of whose flame a quivering music rung, 
 Soft but distinct, and this the song it sung : — 
 
 THE SONG OF THE MAGNET. 
 
 I am the hardy sailor's bride : 
 Over the seas his ships I guide, — 
 Over the brine, from coast to coast. 
 Though by mad billows vexed and tost. 
 
 Before the mariner wed with me. 
 He sailed in fear the narrowest sea ; -^ 
 And on the rock his bark was broke, 
 Though stoutly wrought from heart of oak. 
 
MAGNETISM. 29 
 
 The world was meagre then to him, 
 With a broad ocean for its brim, 
 The bulwarks of whose roaring" wave 
 He might not scorn, and dared not brave. 
 
 Then I, the loadstar of the North, 
 Came from my crystal chamber forth. 
 And won my sailor's happy eyes. 
 Feigning the Magnet's dim disguise. 
 
 Still loyal to my native home, 
 Across whatever seas I roam. 
 Love's fires within my bosom burn. 
 And day and night to that I turn ; 
 
 Content in exile, that by me 
 My sailor has subdued the sea. 
 And on its farthest billows sails 
 Exultant in its wildest gales. 
 
 I led the daring Genoese 
 
 Across the wastes of Western seas, 
 
SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 And kept his faith and courage fast, 
 Till the New World he found at last. 
 
 This mighty ship is mine to keep 
 While twice five hundred eyelids sleep ; 
 And, blow the blast, or fall the fog, 
 She trusts me and the faithful log. 
 
 Oh ! I am the hardy sailor's bride, 
 And cleave forever to his side. 
 Till he to Death gives up his ship, 
 And lets his last life-anchor slip. 
 
OXYGEN. 31 
 
 OXYGEN. 
 
 One night I slept within a narrow room, 
 
 To wake before the dawn, oppressed with 
 
 gloom. 
 Rest to my wearied senses half denied, 
 While ghostly shapes around me seemed to 
 
 glide. 
 A taper's struggling gleam the phantasm 
 
 quelled. 
 And presage of quick malady dispelled. 
 The chamber's lattice, and its door close 
 
 shut. 
 That trance of terror on my spirit put. 
 Breathed o'er and o'er, the poisoned air could 
 
 give 
 Scarce to the flame or me the strength to 
 
 liv 
 
 e. 
 
32 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 Then through the wide-flung casement sprang 
 
 the breeze, 
 Laden with scented bloom from apple-trees, 
 Till what my tortured brain had deemed a 
 
 tomb 
 I knew was just a close and stifling room. 
 Again I slept in sweet repose, and, lo ! 
 A liquid music round me seemed to flow : 
 It may have been the matin-notes of birds, 
 But then I think the songs had wanted words, 
 While on the tide of sound that flowed to me 
 I'm sure this message filled the melody: — 
 
 THE SONG OF OXYGEN. 
 
 Monarch am I of land and sea ; 
 The realms of life are ruled by me 
 
 Since Nature's morning ; 
 With hosts of choiring stars I sung 
 When Heaven's cerulean veil was flung 
 O'er the virgin Earth, demure and young. 
 
 For her adorning. 
 
OXYGEN. 33 
 
 By God's decree, when Earth was made, 
 Through its vapory sphere the role I played 
 
 Of master-builder ; 
 To Hydrogen, my queen, first wed — 
 The great sea was our bridal bed, 
 And secrets then beneath us spread 
 
 Man's thoughts bewilder. 
 
 In that broad realm of mystery deep. 
 By-ways from human ken I keep — 
 
 I shaped this planet ; 
 With kisses cooled the hot desire 
 Of fervid mists, and changed their fire 
 (As heat and glow in strength expire) 
 
 To ribs of granite. 
 
 Amid the rocks I scattered gems 
 With thoughts of royal diadems 
 
 For coming ages : 
 To-day in kingly crowns they shine, 
 With golden hair their splendors twine. 
 And shed their lustre on each line 
 
 Of History's pages. 
 
34 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 I laid the iron in beds of ore, 
 
 And planted coals in boundless store 
 
 In secret places, 
 Till men had need of chains to bind 
 Earth's Titan forces, and the wind 
 In tireless speed to leave behind, 
 
 O'er desert spaces. 
 
 When thou wast born, and a feeble sigh 
 Proclaimed a new life's mystery, 
 
 I was its warden : 
 Over thy cradle, night and day, 
 I hung", to keep thy lungs at play ; 
 And I must watch till thy dust they lay 
 
 In Death's white garden. 
 
 Till Time shall end, as through its past. 
 The hills and groves to dust I cast, 
 Creation's great Iconoclast, 
 
 By God's ordaining : 
 Only the sunbeam stays my hand 
 From wielding o'er the sea and land 
 A sceptre of supreme command, 
 
 In silence reigning, 
 
OXYGEN. 35 
 
 When I to stony sleep would briny; 
 
 In every realm each vital thing, 
 
 New forces from the great Sun spring 
 
 For its renewal : 
 So dust and breath alternate reign, 
 The dead world leaps to life again, 
 As through the ages we maintain 
 
 Our service dual. 
 
 King of the air and earth and sea, 
 All force of being inheres in me. 
 
 And all its changes : 
 In life and death, in bloom and blight. 
 If but my mission be read aright, 
 From end to end of earth, in might, 
 
 My sceptre ranges. 
 
2,6 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 HYDROGEN. 
 
 A CRIMSON bubble, fast upon a string 
 That swayed and fluttered like a redbird's wing, 
 Gave joyance to a child whose happy mood 
 Was to my weary heart both wine and food. 
 I watched the tossing sphere and laughing boy, 
 And gauged by them the sources of true joy : 
 Convinced they lie within ourselves, and spring 
 In inner thought more than in outer thing. 
 "The boy is happy in himself," I said; 
 And while I spoke, lo ! all his joy had fled: 
 The buoyant bubble from his grasp was gone, 
 And the small face a sudden woe took on. 
 The outward thing his mode of feeling made. 
 And of my logic its defect betrayed. 
 In vain I bade him mark the bubble soar — 
 That pleased me better, but the boy no more. 
 
HYDROGEN. 37 
 
 I bought, at length, the surcease of his sorrow 
 I>y promise of another ball to-morrow, — 
 
 A cheap device, for quick my memory then 
 Ran through the chronicles of Hydrogen. 
 Musing, I watched the red speck on the sky 
 Till I grew conscious of a presence nigh : 
 I saw not, only felt, a breath alone, 
 A faint, half-spoken, half a sighing tone. 
 With ear attent, and all my senses stirred, 
 This seemed to me the gist of what I heard : — 
 
 THE SONG OF HYDROGEN. 
 
 Subtle of breath, of shape unseen. 
 Over two realms I reign as queen ; 
 Water and Fire my sceptre own. 
 The flood and flame alike my throne. 
 
 In the dim past, when on the deep 
 Darkness lay brooding like a sleep, 
 God's spirit breathed and moved through me 
 To let the world of waters be. 
 

 
 8 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 So, in the first red flame that curled 
 From the pure bosom of the world, 
 My essence and my breath were blent 
 In its ascending sacrament. 
 
 And ever since, of kindled fire. 
 Without my breath, the flames expire ; 
 And seas and lakes and streams, bereft 
 Of me, were void and formless left. 
 
 Yet in my double realm I reign 
 
 Only in wedlock's mystic chain. 
 
 Divorced from which, my thrones would pass 
 
 Like mists away in unseen gas. 
 
 With kingly Oxygen allied, 
 
 Since when the worlds were made — his bride, 
 
 I shine with splendor in the flame. 
 
 And give the floods their form and name. 
 
 Uncounted rubies in my crown 
 
 Flash as the flames play up and down ; 
 
HYDROGEN. 39 
 
 And gorgeous beads of amber deck 
 With quivering rays my lissome neck. 
 
 The devvdrops are my queenly pearls ; 
 And, when the wind the wavelet curls, 
 Like countless stars my diamonds gleam 
 In tremulous flame along the stream. 
 
 My breath, congealed by boreal blast, 
 O'er all the wintry world I cast, 
 And mould the Arctic seas to forms 
 That fright the sailor more than storms. 
 
 In softer temper toward the Moon, 
 
 I swiftly toss the light balloon. 
 
 That man through air}^ zones may move, 
 
 And mate the cloud-compelling Jove. 
 
 When Science Jends his hand the skill 
 To match the ardor of his will, 
 I'll bear him like an eagle o'er 
 Dividing seas to any shore. 
 
40 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 'Tvvas well you dried the urchin's tear 
 With promise of another sphere : 
 His may the high, proud fortune be 
 To guide my chariots o'er the sea. 
 
 Bend down your ear, I'll whisper low 
 What all the world may come to know 
 Though I'm a vapor, l^reath unseen. 
 Save as I glow in flame's pure sheen, 
 
 I, to the metal line allied. 
 May one day boast a solid pride. 
 And to no doubtful honor come 
 As lustrous Hydrogcniiini.'^' 
 
HE A T. 4 1 
 
 HEAT. 
 
 One August afternoon an evil fate, 
 
 For the swift steamer " Red Wing," made 
 
 me late. 
 Her foam-wreathed wheels gleamed on my 
 
 cheated sight 
 With hint of coolness that inflamed me quite ; 
 And, hot and angry with myself and her, 
 From the thronged pier I vowed I would not 
 
 stir 
 From two till four, but wait the " Naiad's " 
 
 turn, 
 And let the sun and my impatience burn. 
 In the slight shelter of an awning rude, 
 Scarce less removed from shade than solitude, 
 I nursed my sultry mood upon a stool. 
 And called myself — by privilege — a fool. 
 
42 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 The wharfinger, the while I mopped my face, 
 Looked with a glance, half glee and half 
 
 grimace, 
 Then said, " You're up among the nineties, 
 
 Cap ; " 
 And for his humor I forgave the chap. 
 
 The heat, despite the din of trucks and drays, 
 O'ercame my senses like a poppied haze, 
 Until I dreamed, and in my dreaming felt 
 My flesh and bones at once begin to melt. 
 Before my eyes, wdiich like two fire-balls 
 
 seemed, 
 Thermometers by hundreds shot and gleamed. 
 And, lengthening ever as they danced in 
 
 o"loe 
 Flashed on my gaze their simmering mercury ; 
 Then in a swift, tumultuous whirl they spun. 
 And of a sudden their wild waltz was done. 
 Their bursting balls around me harmless 
 
 hissed. 
 And all the air grew dense with silvery mist. 
 
HE A T. 43 
 
 No more I saw or heard ; yet with strange sense, 
 As though I heard, I owned a spell intense, 
 That with all force of speech, unvocal still. 
 Held me in awed subjection to its will. 
 I know not how its weird intent I learned, 
 Unless by ' thoughts that breathed, and words 
 
 that burned ; ' 
 Though on my memory, when my vision broke, 
 This song was scorched like lightning-blaze on 
 
 oak : — 
 
 THE SONG OF HEAT. 
 
 Ha, ha! I am mighty to rule and to rend. 
 And my home's in the breast of the Sun ; 
 
 To the tip of his sceptre my breath I extend, 
 With the beat of his pulses I run. 
 
 Ye mortals, who dwell on this Liliput globe, 
 
 How little of me ye can learn. 
 Though your lenses and daring pyrometers 
 probe 
 
 The caverns and cells where I burn ! 
 
44 SCIENCE JN SOXC. 
 
 Beneath your equator, I give you a taste 
 Of my breath in its torrid degrees, 
 
 Where it scorches the soil to a verdureless 
 waste. 
 And the brute from its fierce fervor flees. 
 
 At my home in the Sun, the sohds I fuse 
 Till to vaporous clouds they distil, 
 
 And some from the shadow-ruled spectrum 
 you lose, 
 Decomposed in my volcanic thrill. -^ 
 
 For thousands of planets my breath would 
 
 sufflce 
 ■ To flood them with beauty and bloom :^^ 
 Denied it, their vigor would fade in a trice, 
 And each of its life be the tomb. 
 
 I move where I will, with invisible wing. 
 
 By invisible methods I toil ; 
 I spread o'er the- earth the green mantle of 
 Spring, 
 
 I ripen its fruits for your spoil. 
 
HE A T. 
 
 45 
 
 I breathe o'er the Alps, and the glaciers flow 
 down ; 
 From their crests the fierce avalanche 
 roars ; 
 Sweet odors through all the green valleys are 
 blown, 
 And Autumn unbosoms her stores. 
 
 I fuse the strong metals to shapes for man's 
 needs, 
 Till the earth and the seas he subdues ; 
 For his trophies of peace, and his red-handed 
 deeds 
 My ploughshares and swords he must use 
 
 I am ever at work, and never at play. 
 
 Through me the stars burn, and worlds 
 spin. 
 And wisely, your modern philosophers say. 
 
 In motion I end — or beirin.-'-* 
 
4-6 SCIEXCE IN SONG. 
 
 THE TELESCOPE. 
 
 Shall I forget, while I remember aught, 
 
 A name, a man, with soul and sweetness 
 
 fraught ? 
 Thy name, thyself, dear Mitciiel,3° to forget, 
 Would leave me poor, with all-else memories yet. 
 I count the years since thou wast rapt away. 
 Each with a tear fresh as I wept that day, 
 When, midst the horrid din of civil war, 
 The tidings smote me from the scene afar — 
 That thou, in battle's harness for the right, 
 Hadst left a living foe with Death to fight ; 
 And, 'neath the orange or palmetto shade, 
 With sad and sudden burial-rites wast laid. 
 
 Before that fatal strife, through all the land. 
 Transformed the service of thy cunning hand. 
 
THE TELESCOPE. 47 
 
 So it laid down the transit and the chart, 
 And pHed with patriot zeal the soldier's art — 
 How oft I knew thy friendly foot's advance ! 
 How oft I felt the welcome of thy glance, 
 As, on the crest of Dudley Hill, I camc^' 
 To the fair temple of thy starry fame, 
 To feed my hungering soul with bread of 
 
 heaven. 
 Raised with the magic of thy subtle leaven ; 
 And slake its thirst with brimmins" draughts 
 
 of wine 
 Pressed from the grapes of knowledge near 
 
 divine ! 
 What Science lost wdien thou didst draw the 
 
 sword. 
 This sole fame adds to patriotism's hoard, — 
 That thy great heart, su})reme among the stars, 
 Sank vainly in the maelstrom of our wars. 
 
 Thy vacant seat in Dudley's trophied tower, 
 Though filled anon, for me, from that sad 
 hour, 
 
48 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 Was empty still, and is, to this far clay, 
 A sacred vacancy for thee alway. 
 I wreathe it now and then with memories 
 Of piercing glimpses out on star-lit seas ; 
 Of lunar shadows which thy mighty lens 
 Transformed for wildness into horrid dens ; 
 The fair, immaculate Moon, one night embraced 
 By starry suitor right around her waist ; 
 And once, such smutches on the Sun's face 
 
 lay. 
 We argued lightly, 'twas not washed that day. 
 One reminiscence, at my cost, I bring, 
 And pay it for the humor of the thing. 
 A royal vision for the night was set, — 
 Conjunction, or eclipse, which, I forget. 
 "Come," said the star-king, "with your wife, 
 
 to tea ; 
 And, for the hour, sharp seven it shall be." 
 With grateful smile I gave my glad assent, 
 And through the great hall, as my way I bent, 
 I marked the clock with solemn tick, tick, tick; 
 And, lo! my watch had played an unwont trick. 
 
THE TELESCOPE. A^C) 
 
 Vox it was fast a quarter to my sight, 
 Though witli the steeple clock, at sunrise, 
 
 right. 
 I thought, howe'er, 'twas best to set it back. 
 That in my promptness there should be no 
 
 lack. 
 
 At just six hours and minutes fifty-eight 
 I drove my carriage through the Dudley gate : 
 My host was there, with graceful courtesy. 
 My wife upon the gravelled path to see ; 
 While, with a comic look, to me he said, 
 " 'Twas well I put the supper-time ahead ; 
 You're full twelve minutes late." I quick re- 
 plied, 
 "That cannot be, your great clock shall decide: 
 I set my watch at noon-tide in the hall." 
 Me laughed aloud, and made my courage fall, 
 PLxclaiming with a glee I scarce can rhyme, 
 "Ha, ha! now, that's a joke, — sidereal time."^^ 
 I did not lose my wits, but got my turn : 
 "Sidereal time! By all the stars that burn," 
 
50 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 I answered him, "if ever I liave seen time, 
 r vow that solemn clock of yours gives iiican 
 
 ' time." 
 My gracious host forgave me my delay, 
 And I, you see, for — gave myself away. 
 
 The starry visions o'er, I sought my rest ; 
 But visions not so real my sleep opprest. 
 I dreamed I lingered in the Dudley tower, 
 And round me felt a cjuaint, uncanny power ; 
 Tumultuous waves of star-lit ether rolled 
 About me, like blue banners pranked with gold; 
 The Equatorial, on its ponderous base, 
 Turned its great eye, majestic, on my face ; 
 And, while I wondered what the movement 
 
 meant, 
 A murmuring whisper made me all intent : 
 It may have been the soughing of the wind. 
 But did not seem so to my feverish mind, 
 Which wove the whispers, by a poet's trope, 
 Into the ballad of the Telescope. 
 
THE rEl.KSCOPR. 51 
 
 THE LAV OF THE TELESCOPE. 
 
 Here in my tower, by day and nii;ht, 
 
 I keep my watch on the sky ; 
 But less I note in noontide's light 
 
 Than when the stars go by. 
 
 Three hundred years — a long way back 
 On the path of fleeting Time — 
 
 There fell faint light, on man's dull track, 
 From skyey vault sublime. 
 
 The golden Sun and silver Moon, 
 
 The stars and the crystalline sphere," 
 
 Swept round the Earth with murmurous tune 
 For credulous men to hear. 
 
 Had Claudius, the great Ptolemy,. 
 
 My power and my uses known, 
 No false Astronomy had he 
 
 To the old ages shown. 
 
52 SCIENCE IN SONG 
 
 I sprang from a Hollander's brain, ^'^ 
 Though yet but a crude conceit ; 
 
 Minerva's story again 
 
 My birth may not repeat. 
 
 His dream by a P'lorentine sage 
 
 To grand reality brought, 
 I became the crown of the age 
 
 In which the work was wrought. 
 
 'Twas in sixteen hundred and nine 
 Broke first on the world my fame, 
 
 And with it a splendor to shine 
 On Galileo's name. 
 
 Then the skies began to unfold 
 Marvels undreamed of before : 
 
 The sage, through my tube, could behold 
 Space through an open door. 
 
 I latd the Moon at his feet ; 
 Veils from new planets I drew ; 
 
THE TELESCOPE. 53 
 
 I brought, for his triumph complete, 
 Jupiter's moons to view. 
 
 My work grew in wonder apace ; 
 
 Round Saturn I cast a ring ; 
 But spots to find on the Sun's bright face, — 
 
 That was the fatal thing. 
 
 The world was ablaze with my fame ; 
 
 Kings coveted me afar ; 
 But the spots on the Sun brought shame,-^^ 
 
 Like a cloud o'er a star. 
 
 'The eye of the universe blurred 
 With Ophthalmia's fatal stroke : 
 
 Such impiety never was heard ! ' 
 And thus Enmity woke. 
 
 But the spots I multiplied still, 
 
 And errant comets I caught ; 
 Clusters of stars disclosed, until 
 
 They bewildered sight and thought. 
 
54 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 My skill has grown with centuries. 
 
 Little the Florentine thought 
 Of the grand celestial ministries 
 
 With which my work was fraught. 
 
 In Herschel's hands I swept the sky 
 Far and wide from Afric's cape, 
 
 Reft suns and stars of their mystery, 
 And gave the nebules shape. 
 
 Some stars to double suns I split, 
 That whirl like prismatic tops ; 
 
 The Milky Way, I gathered it 
 In orbs like silver drops. 
 
 My huge Herschclian bulk I held 
 The uttermost of my pride ; 
 
 And, when to Rosse's tube it swelled,-^'' 
 What dared I hope beside .'' 
 
 To-day a thousand hills are crowned. 
 Like fair Dudley's, with my kind, — 
 
THE TELESCOPE. 55 
 
 Great sentinels which sweep around 
 Wherever blows the wind. 
 
 We pierce the depths of outer space, 
 
 Flames of dying suns descry, 
 Track vagrant comets in their race 
 
 At random through the sky. 
 
 Another Neptune for your Sun 
 Barely hides in chance or hope ; 
 
 Yet, while stars glow and cycles run, 
 Fame crowns the Telescope. 
 
56 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 CARBON. 
 
 One winter night, within my curtained room, 
 Whence glowing carcel lamps expelled all 
 
 gloom, 
 And where a cheerful fire of cannel hurned, 
 A tale as of "Arabian Nights" I learned. 
 I was alone, — that is, with idle thoughts 
 Which followed fancies free, of divers sorts, — 
 When, chancing at the well-heaped grate to 
 
 glance, 
 My gaze was fastened by this circumstance : 
 In the red cavern of a half-burned coal 
 A shape so near a face upon me stole, 
 It seemed at once to feed my fond desire, 
 So oft indulged, for "faces in the fire." 
 The more I gazed, the stronger grew the spell. 
 And all the lineaments developed well, — 
 
CARBON. 57 
 
 The brow o'erhung a pair of lustrous eyes, 
 That only did not mate mine in surprise ; 
 Red cheeks and nose I could not wonder at, 
 The incandescent cinder answered that ; 
 Broad was the mouth, and from the lips, apart. 
 It seemed as if some glowing speech must start. 
 Perhaps I dozed, and dreamed, to think I saw 
 A jerking movement of the figure's jaw. 
 I know I stammered — incoherently — 
 Some sort of challenge, what the shape might 
 
 be. 
 It seemed to take it kindly ; and there came 
 A measured answer from the mouth of flame. 
 Which phonographed itself upon my brain, 
 And I can chant it to your ear again. 
 
 THE STORY OF CARBON. 
 
 What can I say for myself .-* Do you ask 
 What's my name, my class, and my history } 
 
 You set me, I grant, an unusual task ; 
 But perhaps I can solve you the mystery. 
 
$8 SCIENCE IJV SONG. 
 
 My name, then, is Cardo, — my family name : 
 
 I have others, I own, aliases. 
 Though somewhat plebeian, it's true all the 
 same, 
 
 I am commonly Coal to the masses. 
 
 Coal, that's not an alias though, by the way, — 
 Just my old Latin name put in English ; 
 
 But at least half a dozen I use every day — 
 I'm in too many jobs to go singlish. 
 
 I like to be frank, though it may not be 
 wise : 
 Perhaps you're a sort of detective, — 
 One of Pinkerton's men in a poet's dis- 
 guise, — 
 Yet in that case I'll not be objective. 
 
 " Only a plain interviewer ! " ah ! then 
 I will tell you a very plain story : 
 
 I'm sure 'twill appear in gay colors when 
 You've arrayed it in typical glory. 
 
CARBON. 59 
 
 My real name you know, but none of the rest : 
 I've told you I had many another ; 
 
 Perhaps, of them all, I like Charcoal the best 
 (That's myself, not the name of a brother) ; 
 
 Then An-thracite — that's a feminine dodge — 
 And Plumbago (don't go with a legion 
 
 Who think that's the pain so hard to dis- 
 lodge, 
 When caught in the bleak lumbar region). 
 
 And then I am Graphite and Lampblack and 
 Coke, 
 So Pm called by the wise allotropic: 
 Why, sometimes I squeeze myself up in the 
 smoke 
 So small I become microscopic. 
 
 I could tell you of other names yet I use 
 
 In my manifold impersonations ; 
 And there's one (a stunner, I tell you) I choose 
 
 P'or only extraordinary occasions. 
 
6o SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 Now, put your ear down while I whisper it 
 low, — 
 
 The name of earth's jewel, the peerless, — 
 /';;/ tJic diamond stone ; nay, start not, 'tis so, 
 
 And of doubt or denial I am fearless. 
 
 There's never a gem in the crown of a queen 
 But mine all its pride is excelling ; 
 
 And the love, hate, and strife which have ever- 
 more been 
 Spent over my worth are past telling. 
 
 You marvel, and stare your denial at me : 
 "Only doubt," do you say, "that plumbago 
 
 And gems, of one common nature can be. 
 Or by alchemy, fused to it, may go .'' " 
 
 Ah ! this is the secret you sought of my 
 "class ; " 
 
 There is nought else so various in nature : 
 From lowly to lofty by magic I pass 
 
 To extremes in her quaint nomenclature. 
 
CAA'BOlV. 6 1 
 
 One moment you gaze at the flash of a gem, 
 The next on a cinder you trample ; 
 
 Lift your thought from the dust to a proud dia- 
 dem, 
 And behold of my moods an example. 
 
 In charcoal and diamond, I'm one and the 
 same ; " 
 
 And both, by a mystic transition, 
 Inwrapped in the fire-king's ccstus of flame, 
 
 I dissolve to a gaseous condition. 
 
 I am Coal till the furnace transforms me to 
 Coke, 
 
 Having freed me by gas exhalation ; 
 I am Candle and Coal Oil till done into Smoke 
 
 And Lampblack by slow calcination. 
 
 You sharpened your pencil this moment to trace 
 My words with its point on your paper : 
 
 In the pencil you used me on the paper's white 
 face, 
 And again in your luminous taper. 
 
62 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 Without me, your lamps, and the gas of your 
 street, 
 Were shorn of their white incandescence : 
 Of their Hght-giving force, aside from their 
 heat, 
 My atoms, unseen, are the essence. 
 
 My mission as coke is a marvellous share 
 Of the service to man which I render, 
 
 Where currents electrical flash on the air. 
 And flood his great cities with splendor. 
 
 He plunges me deep in a mystical bath, 
 Where the irresolute fire-strcam lingers ; 
 
 Then I open between its electrodes a path, 
 And light leaps from the tips of my fingers. 
 
 Of the breath you exhale I'm a dangerous part ; 
 
 But I hide in the soil's secret prison, 
 And creep through its roots to the forest's great 
 heart. 
 
 Whose vigor through me has uprisen. 
 
CARBON. 63 
 
 In my vapory guise, shrubs, grasses, and flowers 
 To bloom, verdure, fragrance, I nourish. 
 
 Till meadows and gardens and jasmine-wreathed 
 bowers, 
 And Earth's golden harvest-fields, flourish. 
 
 My stout " hearts of oak " ruled once the wide 
 sea. 
 Till Iron and Steam made alliance. 
 Whose strong hulls and keels wrested lordship 
 from me. 
 And hold their dominion through Science. 
 
 What more of me, pray, from my lips can }'ou 
 learn .-^ — 
 
 How the range of my services varies ">. 
 How in earth or in air, wherever you turn, 
 
 I am shaped, and I work by contraries ? 
 
 What I do not, indeed, 'twere a less task to tell, 
 Than what I do and have done, the recital ; 
 
 Since in all Nature's kingdoms and domains I 
 dwell. 
 And through all I am potent and vital. 
 
64 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 THE SUN. 
 
 For weary days I had not seen the Sun ; 
 O'er the chilled landscape hung the cloud-veils 
 
 dun ; 
 And sombre faces matched the somberer sky, 
 Gray as the mists that trooped in squadrons by. 
 May's dainty blossoms spread their charms in 
 
 vain ; 
 Her song-birds faintly piped, or hushed their 
 
 strain ; 
 And on the dreary scene the third night fell, 
 In gloom scarce deeper than the day's drear 
 
 spell. 
 That night I pondered on the power divine 
 That on the glad earth made the Sun to shine ; 
 And, ere I slept, a voice fell on my ear : 
 " From shroud and shade the morning will be 
 
 clear." 
 
THE SUN. 65 
 
 The morning broke, and from the welkhi's 
 
 face 
 Had vanished, of the murk, its faintest trace ; 
 And from my silent hps, as if they spoke, 
 The text of the inspired Preacher broke : 
 "Truly, the light is sweet, and joy is won 
 By happy eyes that may behold the Sun/'^s 
 The text to me a rhythmic sermon preached, 
 As after its divine intent I reached. 
 
 Upon the landscape lay a scarf of light, 
 Wrought in the looms invisible of Night ; 
 On every flower there dropped a golden thread ; 
 The thrush a rain of liquid rapture shed ; 
 The dewy lawn with diamonds was o'erstrown. 
 Feigning a wealth I dare not make my own ; 
 Yet had the glittering drops been jewels rare, 
 And I had garnered all the treasures there, 
 I had been still too poor the debt to pay 
 I owed, and owned, to Heaven that sunlit day. 
 It were not well, the sermon that I heard. 
 Plainly as 'twere the matin-song of bird, 
 
66 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 One only auditor should profit by, 
 And thousands lose a lesson for the sky. 
 I grieve alone to feel its charm abated 
 By the imperfect way it is translated. 
 
 OUR DEBT TO THE SUN. 
 
 Would you learn what is owed to the Sun 
 By the dwellers on Earth's little planet, 
 
 The account I've so rashly begun, 
 I pray you, attentively scan it. 
 
 That the bill is not small I confess, 
 But covers a great many pages ; 
 
 Yet consider, how could it be less 
 For hundreds of thousands of ages } 
 
 Item first, — is the sweet light of day. 
 
 With all its ineffable splendor : 
 Add to this every duplicate ray 
 
 That's sifted through moonbeams so tender. 
 
THE SUN. 6y 
 
 \i\Q\' since the Creation's higli noon, 
 The Sun has iHumined the plenum ; 
 
 And, making his mirror the Moon, 
 
 They've lighted our planet between 'em. 
 
 Some rebate, I admit, might be made 
 
 For occasional lapses in duty. 
 When for sunshine we've had only shade, 
 
 And vapors for visions of beauty ; 
 
 And, anon, for a seldom eclipse — 
 
 (Though that is made up in surprises) 
 
 Grant a little allowance for slips 
 Of all sorts and seasons and sizes ; 
 
 Which, computed with uttermost care. 
 May yield five per cent to our credit : 
 
 You may make such an entry just here, 
 Or bear it in mind, I have said it. 
 
 Item second. — When, wrapped in Night's shade, 
 We kindle the vapor bituminous. 
 
68 SCIEA^CK IN SONG. 
 
 It is sunlight, for long ages laid 
 
 Close hid in the coal-pits, that's luminous. 
 
 All we turn to in darkness for light, 
 
 Metallic or fatty or ligneous, 
 Availing to put ghostly shadows to flight — 
 
 With transfigured sunbeams, is igneous. 
 
 He who burns into midnight his oil, 
 The imprisoned sunshine is spending, 
 
 Still, to gladden man's pleasure or toil, 
 Its ungrudged munificence lending. 
 
 I confess there is something to pay 
 For sunlight transmuted to vapors ; 
 
 That it's cheaper to burn it by day 
 Than out of gas-jets and wa.\ tapers. 
 
 But, the gas-bill and chandler aside, 
 We owe to the Sun's incandescence 
 
 The day long, and, while night-shades abide. 
 Each visible cleam of Liirht's essence. 
 
Tf{E SUN. 69 
 
 You smile ; and I take it you'd say, 
 With your look of complacent felicity, 
 
 "That is true of the past, but to-day 
 How much do we owe Electricity ? " 
 
 Hold there, my dear doubter, you'll get 
 No discount for dynamic splendor 
 
 From "Brush" lights, or any, as yet, 
 Which magnets and carbon-slips render. 
 
 You must prove to me first, that the blaze 
 Of the arc, or the white-glowing horseshoe. 
 
 Is aught else than of sunlight a phase, — 
 An opus to which I won't force you. 
 
 I have done with the item of light, 
 
 And you'll own that the debit's tremendous ; 
 
 Which ever unpaid, it amazes me quite 
 The Sun should such quantities send us. 
 
 Itcui tliird, — is the matter of heat; 
 And a difficult matter Fve found it 
 
JO SCIENCE IiV SOA^G. 
 
 To arrange all its details complete, 
 
 With a ribbon of rhythm tied round it. 
 
 There's the heat that comes down with the 
 light 
 
 In increments lesser or greater, 
 That warms with the day, cools with the night, 
 
 And blazes about the equator. 
 
 You would easier reckon its force 
 If you lived in a zone that is torrid, 
 
 Where your figures to count it, of course. 
 One well might excuse being florid. 
 
 At far Guayaquil, in latitude two, 
 
 An iceberg would melt in a morning. 
 
 And the stranger dry up like the dew 
 At noontide, not under an awning. 
 
 What wonder that great glaciers melt, 
 And run down the Alp-sides in torrents. 
 
 When the breath of July, there, is felt 
 As he issues his summary warrants ! 
 
THE SUN. 71 
 
 Through fervors and frosts, night and day, 
 
 Yet ever with due variation, 
 From his photosphere blazing away. 
 
 We depend on the Sun's radiation. 
 
 And his heat, like his luminous rays. 
 Lies prisoned in ebony chambers. 
 
 Till, set free to temper our rigorous days. 
 It flames up in crimsons and ambers. 
 
 Item fourth, — and the greatest of all. 
 Is our debt for the life of all living : 
 
 Only a clod — a blank icy ball — 
 
 Were the earth, should the Sun stop giving. 
 
 For the breath and the beauty of man. 
 For the flow of his blood in its courses. 
 
 For the play of his limbs, seek the plan 
 In the sunbeam's mysterious forces. 
 
 When the hills with their forests are green. 
 And gardens grow gay with their roses, 
 
72 SCIENCE nV SONG. 
 
 All their exquisite vigor and sheen 
 The Sun by his magic discloses. 
 
 By his force in the wing of the bird 
 It soars in the ether with lightness ; 
 
 By his breath the dead lichens are stirred, 
 And gray crags are blossomed in brightness. 
 
 In the sea, in the air, in the sky, 
 
 Life glows at the touch of his fingers : 
 
 The shroudings of Death cannot lie 
 
 Where the spell of his subtlety lingers. 
 
 No dewdrop that spangles the lawn, 
 
 No gem on Earth's bosom that sparkles. 
 
 Not a splendor that flushes the dawn, 
 No storm-cloud at twilight that darkles ; 
 
 Not a bow on the storm-brow that's bent. 
 Not a banner of sky-tints unfolded, 
 
 Not a joy of the blue firmament, 
 
 But the touch of the sunbeam has moulded. 
 
THE SUN. 73 
 
 To Jehovah be praise for the Sun, 
 Vicegerent and type of His glory, 
 
 Through whom Nature's miracles done, 
 Shine out in the sky and my story. 
 
 If our debt to the Sun we would pay, 
 For all the grand forces of living, 
 
 'Tis a stipend of homage each day, 
 
 Unto God, with the song of thanksgiving. 
 
74 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 THE STARS. 
 
 Night reigned supreme. A cloudless sky 
 Shone with the stars' immortal heraldry, — 
 A field of azure, soft and boundless broad, 
 Decked with the argent blazonry of God ; 
 The moonlight flung no pallor on the flames 
 Of the pure Pleiads — immemorial names! 
 The fair Capella on Auriga's arm 
 Leaned in the splendor of her beauty's charm ; 
 Arcturus and his sons, from northward post, 
 Centred and sentinelled the glittering host ; 
 While through my soul a thrill of rapture ran, 
 The silent splendor of the scene to scan. 
 
 Each star a sun ! The lesson I had learned, 
 While o'er my youth their dazzling glory 
 burned, 
 
THE STARS. 75 
 
 Filled more with wonder my maturer thought 
 Than to my boyish fancy it had brought, 
 While yet, with map and torch, from night's 
 
 blue field 
 I gleaned the scanty harvest it would yield. 
 'Twas later than those midnight starry raids, 
 When what I'd learned, I taught to star-eyed 
 
 maids. 
 And they, in turn, perhaps unconsciously, 
 Taught me — terrestrial astronomy. 
 
 In the high hour supreme, of which I write. 
 There was no sharer of my raptured sight ; 
 I stood beneath the silver-studded sky, 
 And sent my solemn musings wide and high ; 
 With wounded pride, akin to pain, I felt 
 How ill the language of the heavens I spelt ; 
 How meagre more the harvest of my age, 
 I reckoned, than I did my boyhood's wage, 
 For torchlight toils and tears o'er Burritt's 
 
 map. 
 Fearing eclipse by some more lucky chap. 
 
^6 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 Scarce could I then believe the stars were 
 
 suns, 
 And Earth's great light among the smaller 
 
 ones ; 
 While now I gazed upon night's wondrous gem, 
 The dog-star blazing in her diadem, 
 And, in its twinkling yet transcendent glow. 
 Three thousand suns, like ours for bulk, could 
 
 know, 
 And stretch its distance from my wondering 
 
 eyes. 
 Of time, two centuries, as light earthward 
 
 flies.39 
 
 The stars possessed my soul, and, as I 
 
 gazed. 
 They held me in their glamour, sheer amazed ; 
 Their multitude my vision mocked, if true 
 How few the thousands in unaided view ; 
 While, in the crystal lens, to myriads rise 
 Their marshalled hosts that throng the living 
 
 skies. 
 
THE STARS. yy 
 
 While musing of their numbers yet untold, 
 Haply, a task for mortal powers too bold, 
 An old Hebraic chant my memory caught. 
 As if it sprang in answer to my thought. 
 The silence sang with it as 'twere a voice. 
 Scarce David's more had made my heart re- 
 joice : 
 "Jehovah tells the number of their flames ;''° 
 And all the stars He calleth by their names." 
 The Psalmist's mood upon my spirit fell, 
 And thus I sang to them beneath his spell : — 
 
 HYMN TO THE. STARS. 
 
 Ye stars that mock our proud attempts to 
 number 
 Your glittering multitudes. 
 Shining in silence o'er man's strife or slum- 
 ber, 
 Alike on Earth's thronged streets and soli- 
 tudes, 
 
yS SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 Our minds, untutored, marvel at your glintings, 
 
 Changeless from year to year ; 
 Or deem them, by some intuition, hintings 
 Of splendors breaking from some boundless 
 sphere. 
 
 With broader sense we grasp your great un- 
 folding, 
 Each to a radiant sun ; 
 And sometimes, vain of our profound beholding, 
 Our folly counts your marvellous problem 
 done. 
 
 We grant you limitless extent and distance 
 
 Beyond our native earth; 
 And round your fulgent orbs, in vast existence. 
 Our faith to legion circling worlds gives birth. 
 
 We gauge your bulk and weight by boastful 
 science, 
 And sift to dusts your flames ; 
 To your dumb secrecy we bid defiance, 
 And catalogue in characters your names. 
 
THE STARS. 79 
 
 O stars ! I marvel, as ye burn and twinkle, 
 
 If scorn is in your gleam, 
 To mark how we, the drops of light ye sprinkle. 
 Swell in our pride to Wisdom's ample stream. 
 
 We grope amid your hosts as he that goeth 
 
 Forth in the dusk to read : 
 There is but One your parable that knoweth, 
 Your light who kindled and its lapse decreed. 
 
 He who is infinite in understanding, 
 Whose vision knows no bars, 
 Since you He marshalled, and to your dis- 
 banding — 
 Telleth your number and your names, O 
 stars ! 
 
 We catch, from whispers of His inspiration 
 
 By sage and psalmist breathed. 
 Some names His wisdom set at your creation. 
 When with your glittering fires His heavens 
 He wreathed. 
 
80 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 We know His Pleiades and His Arcturus, 
 
 And other primal names : 
 No temporal, vain traditions can assure us 
 How at your birth He called your glowing 
 flames. 
 
 O stars ! we know not aught of your high 
 beauty, 
 Save as revealed by Him : 
 Teach us, ye flaming torches, our true duty, 
 That, when ye pale, our light may not be dim. 
 
THE COMET. 8 1 
 
 THE COMET. 
 
 In eighteen seventy-four, when April's hand 
 Was scattering" timid violets o'er the land, 
 There blazed upon the sky a bearded star. 
 First seen in France by Monsieur Coggia ; 
 And all the world was soon agog to peep 
 At the strange craft afloat on heaven's blue 
 
 deep. 
 A thousand years before, when o'er fair France 
 A kindred fire cast its untoward glance, 
 The frightened people and their frightened 
 
 king "t' 
 Saw dreadful presage in the horrid thing ; 
 And prayers and masses, in the churches said, 
 Were aimed, in lieu of lenses, at its head. 
 The guilty Louis, in his conscience awed. 
 Spread monkish halls and nunneries abroad : 
 
82 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 The fancied perils had they turned aside, 
 Themselves, more potent mischiefs, still abide. 
 
 Four hundred years and more along the 
 track 
 Of Time, and History's page, if we look back, 
 We find the comet, now "of Halley " hight, 
 Blazing o'er Italy with baleful might ; 
 And triple-crowned Calixtus, King and Pope, 
 Saw danger to his thrones in its wild scope ; 
 Then, with all churchly rites of book and bell. 
 His awful ban upon the demon fell ; 
 And from that day, in Rome's Cathedral towers. 
 Bells ring at noon, though peril, no more lowers. 
 With larger learning, and with freer faith, 
 We fear no evil now in Comet's breath : 
 His genus through our solar system flies, 
 Scanned by a thousand telescopic eyes. 
 Close-questioned by our lenses and our prisms 
 About his age, his nature, and his isms. 
 And when one comes along, as Coggia's did. 
 Too big and bright from bare eyes to be hid. 
 
THE COMET. 83 
 
 A milliard optics gaze into his face 
 To see a swifter than a Derby race. 
 
 I did not dream when Coggia's comet came, 
 But, wide awake, I hailed the misty flame, 
 And sung to that as hitherto had sung^^ 
 Strange shapes to me with scientific tongue. 
 I breathed, perchance, some thoughts in that 
 
 address. 
 Which, pleasing him, may please you none the 
 
 less. 
 Its title, "Owed to Coggia's Comet," looks 
 As if I had some debits in his books ; 
 But all my debts are writ in books below : 
 I would it were the comet that I owe ; 
 For then some day my long account might 
 
 run, 
 Borne in his ledger toward the fiery Sun, 
 So nigh the day-god's superheated state, 
 I'm sure my balance he would liquidate. 
 
84 SCIENCE EV SOA'G. 
 
 OWED TO COGGIA's COMET, 
 
 Hail mute, magnificent, mysterious stranger. 
 Whose bright progression on the sky we 
 trace ! 
 From what unfathomed depths art thou a 
 ranger ? 
 Ambassador from what celestial race ? 
 At least thou art an envoy extraordinary, 
 With shining train, attenuated very. 
 
 Though undisclosed, thou hast, I think, a mis- 
 sion, 
 
 Coming with blazonry that frights the stars, 
 In whose grand hierarchies thy position 
 
 We dimly guess beyond bewildering bars. 
 On which we beat our scientific pinions. 
 Spent with far flight in limitless dominions. 
 
 Did .Sirius send thee on thy blazing passage, 
 Charged with some secret for our sovran Sun ? 
 
 And, glowing with the zeal of thine embassage, 
 Thy flight grew faster till thy task was done, 
 
THE COMET. 85 
 
 And, from his august throne in pride return- 
 in c 
 
 We now descry thy backward pathway burn- 
 ing? 
 
 Or art thou one of icy Neptune's neighbors, 
 
 Come up with tribute to his king and thine ? 
 I wot his glance has quickened thy slow 
 labors. 
 And made the dimness of thy distance 
 shine : 
 For they must ride on dull and dismal pillions 
 Whose circuit miles reach twenty thousand 
 millions. ■♦-' 
 
 Hast thou been here before, as some conjec- 
 ture ? 
 
 If but the truth to me thou wilt make known, 
 I'll put thy glory in a flaming lecture, 
 
 The credit thine, and mine the cash alone. 
 How I might laugh at all the learned doctors. 
 The royal institutions and their — Proctors ! 
 
86 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 Dost marvel that no more with ghastly terrors 
 (As in the past thy prototypes were seen) 
 We view thy face, but fearing only errors 
 In judging what thou art and where hast 
 been ; 
 How many ells of cloth of gold thy train took, 
 And how intense its hues from Charles's Wain 
 look ? 
 
 Perhaps, since once a comet scared Calixtus, 
 And prompted him to ban it with his curse, 
 
 Thy frightful spells were meant to have trans- 
 fixed us, 
 
 Driving us trembling Aves to rehearse, 
 
 And with white lips, and knees that knocked 
 together, 
 
 Beseech thee not to spoil our crops and — 
 weather. 
 
 A hundred years ago — or two, we'll call it — 
 Thou hadst not waved thy horrid hair in 
 vain ; 
 
THE COMET. 87 
 
 In dread of direful dangers to befall it, 
 The world had stooped to "bell and book" 
 again ; 
 And on some papal bull or priestly chrism 
 Hung, half in doubt, thy solemn exorcism. 
 
 It well may be thou comest with pretension 
 To have a tilt with this old globe of ours, 
 
 And in our bosoms kindle apprehension 
 Of bursting bolides, meteoric showers, 
 
 Or, at the least, of most unearthly odors, 
 
 Of deadly maladies the foul foreboders. 
 
 We've had, indeed, a winter most erratic. 
 And something's out of order with our 
 spring ; 
 
 Fierce storms have lent an emphasis em- 
 phatic 
 To prophecies of doom, for every thing. 
 
 This very year to fall, said " Mother Ship- 
 ton ; " 
 
 Though, thanks to Fate, the day she fixed 
 she tripped on. 
 
<S8 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 Perhaps thy train, of most outlandish fashion, 
 
 Got tangled in our atmospheric belt, 
 And stirred our sweet June zephyrs to fierce 
 passion. 
 Which we in waves of chilling breath have 
 felt : 
 If so, though with delight at first I saw it, — 
 That gorgeous train, — I charge thee now, 
 withdraw it. 
 
 But since we scan the sky with magic glasses, 
 Sifting their flames the tell-tale prism 
 through. 
 We boldly challenge each queer craft that 
 passes 
 (As now our telescopes are turned on you) ; 
 And be it planet, asteroid, or comet. 
 We seldom fail to get its story from it. 
 
 No dreadful dragon thou, red-tongued and 
 ravenous, 
 To crunch our globe its fiery jaws be- 
 tween ; 
 
THE COMET. 89 
 
 A mighty mass, dim, dubious, and diaphanous, 
 Thy claims to frighten us are quite too 
 
 tJiiu : 
 We'd quench thy fire, both manifest and 
 
 latent. 
 With one extinguisher of Babcock's patent. 
 
 I hailed thee " mute " in my first salutation. 
 And it is true thou hast no mortal tongue ; 
 
 But still thou bringest us a bright narration. 
 And dost "unfold a tale" both strange 
 and long : 
 
 A tale that twenty million leagues surpasses 
 
 Were a most taking serial for the(m)asses. 
 
 When first I saw thy gleams the welkin 
 spangle, 
 "A great celestial engineer," I said. 
 For thou wert laying out a vast triangle 
 With "Bears," both "Great and Little," 
 overhead ; 
 "An elevated-railroad route projector, 
 Or, otherw'ise, a vagrant star-detector." 
 
90 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 I know not zvJiy thou comest, dread visitor, 
 But wish I might have interviewed thee 
 first. 
 How proud were I to be the grand inquisitor, 
 Who of thy habits learned the best and 
 worst ! 
 Why did I not enact the "Artful Dodger," 
 And get ahead of that Italian Coggia ? 
 
 Speed on, great pilgrim from a clime uncertain, 
 'Tis best the Earth and thou, ungreeting, 
 pass, 
 Lest one least grasp should loose thy filmy 
 curtain, 
 And let it drop — on thy disrupted gas. 
 Yet, if thou darest the shock, why, then, to 
 
 sum it 
 Up in two brief words, O Comet ! come rr. 
 
THE MARCH OF SCIENCE. 9 1 
 
 THE MARCH OF SCH^NCE. 
 
 I MARK the march of Science far and wide, 
 Her brilliant victories won on every side, 
 Her trophies in Toil's methods, and her tools, 
 Nor fewer those she gathers in the schools. 
 With skill she moulds material force and form 
 To man's behoof in Nature's calm or storm. 
 And effete modes of mental gain inspires 
 With the hot glow of her fresh-kindled fires. 
 The farmer's golden fields her foot invades. 
 And reaping-hooks give place to serried blades, 
 Which sweep a hundred teeming acres o'er 
 For ten which tired his lusty arm before. 
 So, in the college-hall, dry classic roots 
 She moistens with the juice of ripened fruits, 
 
92 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 Fresh-plucked from trees of knowledge, rich 
 
 and rare, 
 Sprung from Earth's soil, and blossomed in her 
 
 air. 
 Old fashions fade from her triumphant track, 
 And few the murmurs fall to bring them back ; 
 For, in the realms of matter and of mind, 
 She bids us leave the "dead pasts " far behind ; 
 A broader age of life she ushers in. 
 If not Time's age of gold, to that akin. 
 
 While thus, a scanty lustrum since, I took 
 Of Science-progress this enticing look, 
 I read (as who would not, while yet he might, 
 Read what the Cambridge " Autocrat " should 
 
 write .'' ) 
 A fair, fresh book from Holmes's facile pen,-''* 
 In which one special lyric stirred me then. 
 Seeming to voice a timid, tremulous fear — 
 That something vague and ominous drew near. 
 Advancing, with the pace of Science still, 
 The song-world with a silence drear to fill. 
 
SCJEXCE AND SONG NOT DIVORCED. 93 
 
 The poet of "The Coming Era" moaned, 
 And pictured Poesy's fair shape enzoned 
 In rigid cinctures, by stern Science wrought. 
 To crush her form, and stifie her sweet thought. 
 Until her beauteous soul from earth had fled, 
 And man's supremest joy with Song was dead. 
 
 I read and pondered, and a protest sprang 
 Out of my heart to what the poet sang : 
 To give it point, I fashioned it to rhyme, 
 Dumb to the world till some more fitting time 
 Should, haply, lend its measures force to prove 
 That Song and Science still must fall in love. 
 If I misdeem that timely hour is here. 
 Condone my error for my ready tear. 
 
 SCIENCE AND SONG NOT DIVORCED. 
 (a PROTEST.) 
 
 No, no! good doctor, in "The Coming Era" 
 (Which makes of your thin book the twen- 
 tieth part) 
 
94 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 Your apprehension chases a chimera, — 
 
 The Muse from her sweet bowers will not 
 depart. 
 
 Nor will she ever doff her lovely raiment, 
 Except to change its fashion, as do we, 
 
 With now and then, perchance, an eye to pay- 
 ment 
 Of costs she never thought of formerly. 
 
 A change will come, alone, upon her topics, 
 And not, as you portend, upon her modes. 
 
 You'll have to rank, I fear, with the myopics, 
 Foreseeing dearth of epics and of odes. 
 
 She'll deal, as heretofore, in songs and son- 
 nets : 
 But for all lovers she will rainbows choose ; 
 For maidens' eyes and curls, and " loves of 
 bonnets," 
 Night-stars and clouds and sea-foam caps 
 she'll use. 
 
SCIEA'CE AXD SONG NOT DIVORCJiJ). 95 
 
 She'll wreathe her garlands round the dryest 
 fossil, 
 
 Adorn with madrigals the trilobite ; 
 The tiniest monad and the moose colossal, 
 
 A sonnet this, an epic that, indite. 
 
 The lover and the maiden on the sofa, 
 
 The Muse's spell will feel and understand ; 
 
 And, as on well-marked map of old Fraunho- 
 fer,-'5 
 He'll read the mystic lines upon — her hand. 
 
 For frolicsome Thalia there'll yet be chances 
 To fling her idyls and her canzones forth : 
 
 She'll weave them of the weird electric dances 
 That flash and flicker in the frigid North. 
 
 In her deft hands your cruel vivisection. 
 
 The myths of Greece and Rome she'll re- 
 create ; 
 
 Their genii and giants find a resurrection 
 In Science feats and forces wondrous sreat. 
 
96 SCIEiXCE IN SONG. 
 
 And since she's ever clone her best in fiction, 
 And fables found the fittest for her tongue, 
 
 There's ample verge for her delicious diction, 
 In Science dreams and fantasies unsung. 
 
 Room there for odes to celebrate Bath3'bius, 
 And render Huxley famous for all time,*^ 
 
 Who fathered life, terrestrial and amphibious. 
 On the gray ooze dredged from the deep-sea 
 slime. 
 
 And Darwin's creed, that makes men tailless 
 monkeys,'''' 
 May well supply the comic bard with themes ; 
 Though, had he set its bounds at human flun- 
 kies, 
 'Twere plausible as now impossible it seems. 
 
 There's not a flower in all the old anthologies 
 
 That will not bloom for Science, like the rose ; 
 And modern notes they'll discount, sans apolo- 
 gies. 
 On other banks than where the wild tivic 
 o-rows."*^ 
 
SCIENCE AND SONG NOT DIVORCED. 97 
 
 And let me quote to purpose, your example, 
 Which gives us Science in the guise of 
 song : 
 
 "The Coming Era " serves me for a sample. 
 Whose perfect verse veils a prophetic wrong. 
 
 But pardon me, my master in all metres, 
 I read again your rhymings, and — behold ! 
 
 In soul and sound alike they grow completer, 
 As I discern the riddle they infold. 
 
 The creed I chide, you give, I see, no credence, 
 But song forever shrine in happy hearts ; 
 
 And with your fancied heresy's decedence 
 My every dissonance with you departs.-*^ 
 
 Beyond the Iron Gate bid snows defiance. 
 And melt them with the sun of genial song ; 
 
 Blend the rare charms of Poesy and Science, 
 And Heaven your singing pilgrimage pro- 
 long. 
 
98 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 THE OUTLOOK OF THE HOUR. 
 
 I PAUSE, while Science wooes me yet to 
 
 sing 
 Her far adventurous flights on sunward wing ; 
 Her patient quests where Arctic horrors bar 
 The daring glance that searches farthest 
 
 star ; 
 Her scrutiny in clefts and caverns deep, 
 Where fabled gnomes o'er treasures lie asleep, 
 But where her keen interpreter translates 
 Moses' old history inscribed on slates. 
 Above, below, within, without our globe, 
 Where lies the realm her cunning does not 
 
 probe. 
 Or, baffled or betrayed by first false view. 
 With final triumph looks the illusion through .'* 
 
THE OUTLOOK OF THE HOUR. 99 
 
 These unsung toils and ti"oi)liies of her line 
 
 I drop reluctant, and of need, from mine ; 
 
 For with his song her round of fame to fill, 
 
 Till Earth's last hour, one must be singing still. 
 
 Not half the priests who in the temple stand, 
 
 Builded in beauty by the Eternal Hand, 
 
 Deny or doubt the revelation there, 
 
 One with the truth God's testaments declare ; 5° 
 
 And fewer still the unbelievers count. 
 
 As purer knowledge flows from Learning's 
 
 fount. 
 The question more to moral issues tends. 
 Till in the spiritual the material ends. 
 Not yet the victory unto Truth belongs. 
 Yet Truth, who cannot speak with dissonant 
 
 tongues. 
 Who seeks with honest, humble, earnest soul. 
 Is on the path to her exalted goal. 
 The outlook of the hour the hope sustains 
 That Christian faith o'er doubting Science 
 
 sains. 
 
100 SCIENCE IN SONG 
 
 The age is rife with theories, old and new ; 
 And false philosophies outrun the true, 
 But run so fast, they stumble on the course, 
 And fiing their riders like an ill-trained horse. 
 The pride of human reason sought to find 
 In lifeless mud the potency of mind. 
 And made of slime, that sleeps in nether sea, 
 Source of all life, past, present, and to be. 
 Bathybius soared to Haeckel's credulous eye, 
 The germ of life, and grave of Deity, 
 Till in the subtle tube the oozy slime 
 Dwindled to gypsum from its rank sublime ; 5' 
 And bioplasms, with that new god, fell 
 Down to the plane of a "primordial — sell." 
 
 To-day there are whose wit and wisdom shape 
 
 Our manhood to the model of the ape,^' 
 
 And make our Newtons and our Shakspeares 
 
 fail 
 Of being monkeys that they lack — a tail. 
 To such philosophers who would not grant 
 All length of tail their Simian theories want, 
 
THE OUTLOOK OF THE HOUR. lOI 
 
 And let their Orang origin be plain, 
 
 By tails, and half the weight of human brain." 
 
 Yet, ere these numbers into silence sink, 
 I crave some lingering moments on its brink 
 To mark the drift of Science -thought, and 
 
 speech. 
 As these o'er continents and convictions reach. 
 A lively war, in which much ink is shed, 
 With heavy arguments in lieu of lead, 
 Some scientists and theologians wage. 
 And hottest o'er the old Mosaic page. 
 While furious skirmishers employ their pens 
 Too oft with immaterial "whys " and "whens." 
 The strife, prolonged to-day, yet slacker grows, 
 Though here and there fall thick and stalwart 
 
 blows. 
 The pity of this Punic war of words 
 Is that the flourish of their paper swords 
 The combatants to empty issues leads, 
 And makes the fight 'twi.xt theories and 
 
 creeds. 
 
102 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 These, and vagaries like them by the score, 
 Old fables, and new-dressed ones seen before, 
 Are man's vain dreams of truth all life about, 
 In earth and sea and self, ivitJi God left out ; 
 Whom though the lens and prism may not 
 
 reveal, 
 Beyond their scope through faith we know 
 
 and feel. 
 And Science, with this inward, upward sight. 
 Sees all the Cosmos bathed in Heaven's own 
 
 light. 
 New radiance floods the old Mosaic page. 
 Bent backward from our geologic age ; 
 And the deep problems of the Book of Job 5-* 
 Our modern knowledge shows us how to probe, 
 Until the Bible may of Cosmos be — 
 Its oldest chronicle and newest key. 
 
 Men talk profoundly of the reign of law 
 That governs life and change without a flaw. 
 By whose decrees stars burn and planets roll. 
 The earth revolves, the needle seeks the pole ; 
 
THE OUTLOOK' OF THE HOUR. IO3 
 
 The rainbow bends its beauty on the cloud ; 
 The pestilence for thousands weaves its shroud; 
 The shrinkiug globe its granite girdle breaks, 
 Seas heave with terror, and the broad land 
 
 shakes ; 
 The tempest breaks the gallant heart of oak ; 
 The livid lightning darts its vengeful stroke ; 
 The rain, the drought, harvest and want, take 
 
 turn, 
 The bitter blasts that freeze, the suns that 
 
 burn, — 
 These and the unsummed haps of time and 
 
 man 
 Are but the outcome, all, of Nature's plan. 
 Let us not cavil for an empty name : 
 This creed and ours may fuse into the same. 
 If for its law we the law-giver see. 
 The creed sees only not so far as we.''^ 
 Pondering this problem in my mind crcwhile, 
 Some taskless twilight moments to beguile, 
 I yielded to a grave poetic spell, 
 And from my mood evolved — 
 
104 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 MY ORACLE. 
 
 Unerring law, that swings the earth around, 
 And whirls the planets in their lustrous 
 spheres, 
 
 Oh, tell me where the master-key is found, 
 That winds the mighty horologe of years ! 
 
 On the blue heaven's resplendent dial glow. 
 In grand procession, countless suns and stars ; 
 
 And we who watch and wonder here below. 
 Fret with vain quest behind our finite bars. 
 
 The rhythmic anthems of the circling choirs. 
 Which fervent souls in happy trances hear, 
 
 To duller sense are but material fires, 
 
 That burn with splendor, but to disappear. 
 
 By whose behest wert thou, unerring Law, 
 Bidden to turn the tireless wheels of time. 
 
 Play Nature's marvellous drama without flaw, 
 And chide man's sordidncss with her sub- 
 lime .'' 
 
J/}' ORACLE. 105 
 
 Art thou, I pray, a self-existent power. 
 
 Though blind and dumb, yet animate and 
 vast ? 
 
 And dost thou own to none thy wondrous dower 
 Of life and force upon all being cast ? 
 
 Thou canst not answer me, for thou art dumb, 
 And yet thy dumbness shall my conscience 
 teach ; 
 
 Out from thy deep primordial glooms shall come 
 A fire to fuse thy silence into speech. 
 
 If thou couldst make and move the world and 
 men, 
 
 I could not wiser than my Maker be ; 
 Thou canst not tell me what I ask : so, then. 
 
 At thy mute shrine I will not bend the knee. 
 
 Thou art, I think, thyself my very quest. 
 
 The master-key that winds the clock of time ; 
 
 I welcome to my heart a sacred guest, 
 
 Who lifts for me the veil from truth sublime. 
 
Io6 SCIENCE IN SONG. 
 
 Sweet Faith ! I hear thee, and my soul beheves 
 
 In one creating, uncreated Lord ; 
 And with thy creed my happy heart receives, 
 
 In rest from wildering doubts, its high reward. 
 
 My Lord, my God, who heaven and earth hast 
 made, 
 
 I mark thy hand upon unerring law ; 
 Now move the worlds in beauty's robe arrayed, 
 
 And from thy will and word their order draw. 
 
 No more my soul shall Doubt's discjuiet know, 
 Nor grope in glooms which Pride and Reason 
 breed ; 
 No more to Earth's vain oracles I'll go, 
 
 Since Faith to God my thankful soul doth 
 lead. 
 
 l'envoi. 
 
 Science in Song ! Ah, if the song be meet, 
 Then Song and Science make a chord complete. 
 Not mine the skill this miracle to reach. 
 And wisdom in divinest numbers teach. 
 
V ENVOI. 107 
 
 If less my aim, 'tis only that I know 
 
 How few the founts whence the rich measures 
 
 flow, 
 Their melodies with Nature's tongues to chime, 
 And with her Science make the song sublime. 
 
 When God His high creative power displayed, 
 And Earth's foundation-stones on nothing laid, 
 Nature's first anthem on the air was flung. 
 As all the morning stars together sung j^^ 
 And shouts of joy for chorus rang abroad 
 From the glad bosoms of the sons of God. 
 
 All charms of Nature that the poet feels, 
 Whose loftiest ode no glimpse of God reveals. 
 Are barren yet of rapture to inspire 
 His soul and song with Art's supremest fire. 
 And boastful Science, which the space-void 
 
 sweeps. 
 But finds no Primal Wisdom in its deeps, 
 And hears no voice above the thunder's roar. 
 Has need its own murk mazes to explore. 
 
I08 SC/EiVCE I.V SONG. 
 
 Lest fatal, more than ignorance, they betray 
 The proud truth-seeker into Error's way. 
 In chilling Doubt's, and Unbelief's, defiance, 
 I make this humble inscript of 
 
 MY SCIENCE. 
 
 Should Science tell me that my faith in God 
 Is vain, since God is not, nor any need 
 Of Him, then would I banish from my creed 
 All Science, and take lessons from the clod, — 
 Which dumb and dead, like Aaron's budded 
 
 rod, 
 Blooms yet, by miracle, to flowery mead. 
 Where plain, as in the Holy Book, I read 
 God's power and wisdom painted on the sod. 
 Not thus has Science taught my grateful soul, 
 By starry gleam, or secret cell explored. 
 Nor bid me dash my foot against a stone : 
 She buoys my faith on all the tides that roll, 
 And tells me, if to loftier heights I soared. 
 In farthest skies, I should find God alone. 
 
NOTES 
 
 Note i, p. i. 
 
 " Not selfish love to serve, or vengeful hate" 
 
 The invention of "infernal machines,'' charged with such 
 destructive explosives as nitro-glycerine and dynamite, which, 
 in the hands of reckless adventurers and anarchists, undoubt- 
 edly exhibit "vengeful hate," even as the application of sci- 
 entific principles in the dangerous adulterations of foods, 
 medicines, and other substances, affords proofs of "selfish 
 love '• on the part of all who pursue, or seek profit from, such 
 practices. Nor is it entirely true, perhaps, that science has 
 not contributed to the satmg of " regal pride " or " warlike 
 greed " in new devices for war and conquest. It must be 
 remembered, however, that the application of scientific con- 
 trivances to the arts and industries affords, equally with the 
 means of malicious and m.ischievous processes, easy methods 
 for their detection and defeat. There is, therefore, "no man- 
 tling stain '■ upon the aims and achievements of science. These 
 are always honorable and useful, and all dishonor and abuse 
 
 109 
 
no NOTES. 
 
 of them attach only to the evil passions and greeds of evil 
 men. 
 
 Note 2, p. 2. 
 
 " And /'iihis lone A'cplnnc to t/w Sun's control." 
 
 The loneliness of Neptune in the solar system can be appre- 
 ciated by the reader, only as he realizes that its distance from 
 the sun is 2,862,000,000 miles, or about thirty-one times that 
 of our own planet. The marvel of science, in the discovery 
 of this remote orb, lies in the manner of that discovery. This 
 was at first conjectural, and grew out of perturbations and 
 irregularities observed m the movements of Uranus, the then 
 recognized outermost sentry of the vast solar camp, — irregu- 
 larities which could not be referred to any cause li'ithiii its 
 orbit. Early in the history of this problem, the existence of a 
 ]ilanet outside of Uranus was suspected by Hansen and other 
 astronomers. In 1S41 an English savant, Professor Adams, 
 and M. Leverrier, an eminent French astronomer, began a 
 mathematical search for its place in the sky. In 18.^6 they 
 fixed upon a point within one degree of each other's calcula- 
 tion ; and on the very night of the day upon which their 
 researches were made known in Berlin, Dr. Galle of the 
 observatory there, by the aid of the Berhn star-maps (not then 
 in the hands of the English astronomers), found the " suspect " 
 just where it was supposed to be ; and a grand trophy of science 
 was achieved, which fully justifies Arago's characterization of 
 it as "one of the most lirilliant manifestations of the exacti- 
 tude of the system of modern astronomy." 
 
NO TES. I I I 
 
 Note 3, p. 2. 
 
 " 'J7ie mad pulsations of the violet ray.'''' 
 
 Estimating the velocity of light in round numbers at 190,- 
 000 miles a second, and the wave-length, or pulse, of the violet 
 ray to be so short that it requires 64,631 of such pulsations to 
 make up an inch, the calculation for the whole distance trav- 
 elled by the violet ray from the sun to the eye gives the amaz- 
 ing number of pulsations as seven htiiulred and eighty-nine 
 millions of millions. 
 
 Note 4, p. 2. 
 
 " Till metals flash like suns in their profounds." 
 
 The temperature of the red ray beyond its bound in the 
 visible spectrum, or color-band, is so intense that platinum-foil 
 is instantly raised to brilliant incandescence, when exposed 
 to it in the focus of the electric beam, from which all the 
 light is cut off by passing it through a solution of iodine in 
 the bi-sulphide of carbon. 
 
 Note 5, p. 2. 
 
 , " Plucks the zoeird force the chemic page that printsT 
 
 The violet end of the visible spectrum manifests low tem- 
 perature, but high actinism, or chemical power; and violet- 
 tinted photographs have been taken in the ultra-violet and 
 therefore invisible region of the spectrum of the sun, and of 
 the electric light. This result is due to the fluorescent power 
 of certain prepared surfaces. 
 
I 1 2 NO TES. 
 
 Note 6, p. 2. 
 
 " IVith blazing breath they answer, ' Here we are ! ' " 
 
 "Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto 
 thee. Here we are?" — Job xxxviii. 35. 
 
 Note 7, p. 3. 
 
 " Or carbon candles, a la Jablochkojfr 
 
 One of the earliest forms of the practical electrical light, 
 and largely used in Paris, was the so-called " Jablochkoff 
 candle," which consists of two parallel rods of prepared car- 
 bon, set upright, and separated by a slender layer of some 
 ceramic substance, which, while it keeps the carbon points at 
 uniform distance — one of the conditions of steady light — yet 
 fuses away in the electric arc. 
 
 Note 8, p. 4. 
 
 " A dollar for a thousand cubic feet." 
 
 The "gas-men" of Chicago have recently reduced the price 
 of gas practically to this low rate ; and, if our wide country 
 affords as yet no other instance of such cheapness, it is 
 equalled, and mdeed exceeded, by the low price of gas in 
 London. 
 
 Note 9, p. 5. 
 '^ And swaying to and fro, like Brocken wraith.''' 
 
 The spectre of the " Brocken " is a well-known phenomenon, 
 in which images of persons standing on the summit of a lofty 
 
NOTES. I 13 
 
 peak of the Hartz Mountains (in Hanover) are seen, as if upon 
 opposite and distant heights, imitating exactly the motions 
 made by them. The effect depends upon atmospheric condi- 
 tions, — mists or fleecy clouds, — which at morning or evening 
 sometimes produce gigantic shadows of beholders. 
 
 Note id, p. 6. 
 
 " / drew in a /loiiirly tca-kcttle 
 
 The first storied gasp of my breath.''' 
 
 The familiar story that James Watt (whose improvement of 
 the steam-engine in its early stages almost entitles him to be 
 called its inventor) was led, as a boy, to the study of the force 
 of steam by seeing and experimenting with the lid of a tea- 
 kettle "bobbing up and down " upon the "hob" at the house 
 of his aunt in Glasgow, where he was visiting in 1750, is the 
 author's somewhat meagre warrant for this couplet, which, 
 however, may well help to perpetuate a possible and pretty 
 legend. 
 
 Note ii, p. 6. 
 
 " The Diightiest hhnos of Thoi's hammer 
 I help his right arm to excel." 
 
 Thor was the war-god of the Scandinavian mythologv. 
 His mace, or mighty hammer, with which, it was said, he could 
 crush mountains, was called Mjollner. 
 
114 AZOTES. 
 
 Note 12, p. 12. 
 
 " That o'lnviis vie Electron the Bright " 
 
 Electron is the Greek word for amber, in wliicli suljstance 
 attractive and repnlsive power were first observed; and this 
 brilliant substance has given its name both to electric force 
 and to the science which describes its phenomena and its history. 
 
 Note 13, p. 13. 
 
 " Beheld me through lattice of amber, 
 Yet little he learned of me so." 
 
 About six hundred years B.C., Thales of Miletus, one of 
 the seven wise men of Greece, having rul)bed a piece of amber 
 with a silk handkerchief, and laid it upon a table, was startled 
 at seeing light substances, as fragments of pith or papyrus, 
 instantly attach themselves to it. On taking it up to examine 
 the phenomenon closely, the effect ceased, but was easily re- 
 newed when again he rubbed the amber. 
 
 Note 14, p. 13. 
 
 " Unstoried for eras I stand." 
 
 For nearly twenty-three centuries after Thales made his 
 observation on the curious electric jiroperty of amber, little 
 more of importance was added to this germinal fact in the 
 development of electrical phenomena than the discovery that 
 various other sul)stances, especially tourmaline and the gems, 
 were susceptible of like excitation. 
 
A'O TES. I I 5 
 
 Note 15, p. 13. 
 
 " / ran, in the trance of my wonder, 
 
 Dmvn the cord of a ventiiroiis kite.'" 
 
 The experiment of Benjamin Franklin in drawing the light- 
 ning from a storm-cloud along the string of a rudely con- 
 structed kite, which he elevated in June, 1752, into the lowering 
 atmosphere over the Philadelphia Common, is too well known 
 to justify more than this simple reference to it. It is claimed 
 that the process was actually performed by M. Dalibard at 
 Marly, in France, some weeks earlier than Franklin acconr- 
 plished it. But, if so, the French electrician was guided to his 
 fortunate experiment and success by a letter of the American 
 philosopher, addressed to Mr. Peter Collinson of London, 
 suggesting to the English scientists this simple means of test- 
 ing a bold hypothesis ; which letter was translated and pub- 
 lished in a Paris science journal, and thus made known to the 
 Marly experimenter. If he had not played with Franklin's 
 kite, as the men of Timnath in sacred legend are said to have 
 ploughed with .Samson's heifer, before they could solve Sam- 
 son's riddle, Dalibard would not have found out the great 
 electric riddle of the eighteenth century. 
 
 Note 16, p. 14. 
 
 " The touch of 7\ing Midas the Golden 
 Prefigured viy work in the cell.'''' 
 
 The fable of the Phrygian king, Midas, represents him as 
 rewarded for hospitality to the god Silenus by the grant of his 
 
Il6 A'OTF.S. 
 
 liclition that his tciuch should transmute every thing into gold 
 \\'hen it thus transformed his very food into the precious but 
 nidigestible metal, he prayed for the withdrawal of the fatal 
 power. Many curious legends hang around the story of Midas, 
 but only with the primal tale is this note concerned. In the 
 process of electro-plating, the base metals and other substances, 
 even forms of wood and clay, are rapidly coated with gold, or 
 silver, or nickel, which metals are deposited from the solutions 
 of some of their salts contained in the cells. The object to be 
 plated is connected with the negative pole of the battery; and 
 to the other pole is attached a plate of whatever metal is to be 
 thrown down, and this dissolves as rapidly as its salt in solution 
 yields its metal to the surface to be plated. 
 
 Note 17, p. t6. 
 
 " /;/ f/u' o>rat (^/(7ss tJiat from fair Tiilse IlilP s donie.^'' 
 
 Tulse Hill is a prettv suburb in the south-west of London, 
 and in close proximity to Dulwich. On its crest is the unpre- 
 tentious residence of Dr. William Huggins, the astronomer 
 and spectroscopist, whose researches in stellar and cometir 
 spectroscopy are world-renowned. At the time of the author's 
 enjoyment of his courtesy, he was using, in connection with 
 his fine equatorial telescope, a very iiowcrful anil many-jMismed 
 spectroscope belonging to Mr. Gassiot, which divided the 
 sodium line to an apparent half-inch, and disclosed a broad 
 nickel line between its twin-boundaries. 
 
NOTES. WJ 
 
 Note i8, p. i8. 
 
 " With rapture for the poet^s eye." 
 
 Wordsworth says in familiar lines, — 
 
 " My heart leaps up when I behold 
 A rainbow in the sky : 
 So was it when my life began, 
 So is it now I am a man. 
 So be it when I shall grow old. 
 Or let me die." 
 
 And Campbell, in his " Ode to the Rainbow," says, — 
 
 " Triumphal arch tliat fill'st the sky 
 
 When storms prepare to part, 
 I ask not proud Philosophy 
 
 To tell me what thou art ; 
 Still seem, as to my childhood's sight, 
 
 A midway station given, 
 For happy spirits to alight 
 
 Betwixt the earth and heaven." 
 
 Note 19, p. 19. 
 
 " And made the arrowy light-beam tell 
 The mystery of its mould." 
 
 It was in the year 1666 that Sir Isaac Newton made his 
 memorable experiment with a triangular piece of flint glass, 
 upon one of the sides of which he received in a darkened 
 room, through a small round hole in the window-shutter, a 
 slender beam of light. Passing through the prism, it fell ui)nn 
 
Il8 A'OTES. 
 
 the opposite wall in a patch or band of seven colors, since 
 known as the solar spectrum, and these colors arranged as in 
 the rainbow. It was thus that the composite character of 
 white light was made known to man. 
 
 Note 20, p. 20. 
 
 " IVhei! some keen glance the hidden 7vay 
 Into its maze divines.'''' 
 
 In the year 1814 this was accomplished by Joseph von 
 Fraunhofer, an optician of Munich, who, combining the jMism 
 with the lenses of the telescope, invented the spectroscope. 
 
 Note 21, p. 22. 
 
 " This one of Magnes holds the foremost place.'''' 
 
 Excepting, perhaps, the one found in the "Arabian Nights' 
 Entertainments" (third calendar), in which is the legend of a 
 magnetic mountain which drew out all the nails of any ship 
 tiiat approached within its influence. "The ship in which 
 I'rince Agib sailed fell to pieces when wind-driven towards it." 
 
 Note 22, p. 24. 
 
 " For ages the vagtte veil of mystery.'''' 
 
 From the observation of the electric property of amber by 
 Thales far into the Christian era, no important electrical dis- 
 covery is noted, and until 1730 A.l). no scientific generalization 
 was made. 
 
NOTES. 119 
 
 Note 23, p. 25. 
 
 " O fatal halt, that sevenscore years held back I " 
 
 The interval between Sir Isaac Newton's discovery of the 
 solar spectrum in 1666, and the perfection of his great work 
 in Fraunhofer's observation of the famous dark lines in 18 14, 
 was nearly a century and a half. About the beginning of the 
 nineteenth century, however, the " lines " were probably seen 
 by Dr. Wollaston, though not with discrimination enough to 
 make their discovery certain. 
 
 Note 24, p. 26. 
 
 " Two centuries late 7ve have it, all the same." 
 
 In the foregoing note the actual interval between the experi- 
 ment of Newton, which resulted in only a pure spectrum, and 
 that of Fraunhofer, which produced a striated spectrum, is 
 more precisely stated. The " two centuries " may be counted 
 from the seventeenth of Newton's great work, to the nine- 
 teenth of our broad realization of the results which he only 
 inaugurated. 
 
 Note 25, p. 28. 
 
 " He sailed in fear the narrowest sea." 
 
 The introduction of the mariner's compass into Europe 
 dates back hardly six centuries, prior to which period, if the 
 directive property of the magnet was known at all, it was not 
 associated with sailing the seas. Some poet, referring to that 
 period, says, — 
 
I 20 NO TES. 
 
 " Rude as their ships was navigation then, 
 No useful compass or meridian known ; 
 Coasting, they kept the land within their ken. 
 
 And knew no north, save when the pole-star shone.'' 
 
 The name of Flavio Gioia, of Amalfi, near Naples, is gener- 
 ally associated with the construction of the box-compass and 
 the device of the fleur-de-lis, which indicated the north. 
 
 Note 26, p. 40. 
 
 ^^ As lustrous HydrogcniiimP 
 
 The metallic nature of hydrogen has been long suspected 
 by chemists from its curious re-action with finely divided plati- 
 num, or platinum-foil, producing the incandescence of the 
 metal, and the ignition of the gas. Palladium absorbs this gas 
 very largely, and forms with it a decided alloy. Out of such 
 an alloy the Count Rumford medal of the British association 
 of scientists, at the Brighton meeting in 1872, was struck, 
 and determined approximately the metalline character of this 
 the lightest of all bodies, and the subtlest of the gases. 
 
 Note 27, p. 44. 
 
 ^'' Decomposed in my volcanic /liriliy 
 
 The absence of lines in the spectrum of the sun, which, if 
 present, would indicate the existence on that orb of substances, 
 which, abounding in our planet, we might reasonably suppose 
 would be found in the sun, may be accounted for by their 
 probable reduction by the fierce solar heat into lower and 
 
XOTES. 121 
 
 simpler forms, — an hypothesis which may hereafter find some 
 color of evidence by the eventual decomposition of supposed 
 earthly elemental forms of matter. 
 
 Note 28, p. 44. 
 " To flood thcni with beauty and bloom." 
 So very insignificant is the moiety of the heat-force of the 
 sun which our earth receives, that it is estimated at only the 
 one-half of t lie one hundred and thirty-eight niillionth part. If 
 there were duplicated earths strung closely together upon the 
 earth's orbit as a cord, the number would reach 75,000; and all 
 these, vivified and warmed by the sun equally with our globe, 
 would still not require a quantum of his heat in excess of the 
 
 TTninj part- 
 
 Note 29, p. 45. 
 
 "/« motion / end — or begin.'''' 
 The new philosophy of heat as developed by Joule, Tyn- 
 dall, and other physicists, in accordance with the germinal 
 suggestion and experiment of Count Rumford at Munich in 
 1798, completely upsets the material or substantive theory so 
 long prevalent, and establishes beyond cavil the mechanical or 
 motion nature of heat, — its perpetual energy in work, — origi- 
 nating motion, or resulting from motion for new activities. 
 
 Note 30, p. 46. 
 " Thy name, thyself, dear MlTCiiEL, to forget" 
 Gen. Ormsby McKnight Mitchel, director of the Dud- 
 ley Observatory at Albany, as also of the Cincinnati Observa- 
 
122 XOTES. 
 
 tory, was born in Kentucky, July, 1809, and died at Beaufort, 
 S.C., while in command of tlie Federal troops there in 1862. 
 Distinguished as an astronomer, and unsurpassed as a lecturer, 
 he resigned his professional positions for service to his coun- 
 try, and died from fever, widely and tenderly lamented. 
 
 Note 31, p. 47. 
 " As, on the c7-est of Dudley Hill, I came." 
 
 The Dudley Observatory at Albany occupies a beautiful 
 elevation overlooking the city, and at only a very short dis- 
 tance from it. Thither it was the author's happiness to go 
 frequently in the years immediately following its ecjuipment 
 and inauguration through the beneficence of Mrs. Blandina 
 Dudley, and while it was under the superintendence of Gen. 
 Mitchel, whose fame at the Cincinnati Observatory had pre- 
 ceded him at Albany. 
 
 Note 32, p. 49. 
 
 " Ha, ha ! inna, that's a joke, — sidereal time ! " 
 
 Between the solar day and the sidereal day, there is a differ- 
 ence of length, amounting to four minutes, resulting from the 
 variation in the intervals occupied by the sun and stars in 
 their transit from meridian to meridian again. The star-transit 
 takes just four minutes less time than the average passage of 
 the sun ; which latter, indeed, is variable, while that of the star 
 is fixed and constant. 
 
XOTES. 123 
 
 Note 33, p. 5'- 
 " T/ie stars and the crystalline sphere." 
 "The music of the spheres " was a conception of Pythago- 
 ras, founded upon the old idea that every planet and star 
 was fixed upon a transparent sphere, which revolved about 
 the earth with definite velocity. The multitudinous motions 
 of these crystal spheres were the source of the imagined 
 harmony. 
 
 Note 34, p- S^- 
 " / sprang from a Hollandc7-'' s brain." 
 The crude conception of the telescope is attributed to sev- 
 eral persons, two of whom were Hollanders. One of them 
 was Lipperhey, and another an optician named Jansen. It 
 was from hearing of these contrivances that Galileo obtained 
 his impulse to imitate them, and the result was the astronomi- 
 cal telescope. 
 
 Note 35,. p. 53. 
 " But the spots on the sun brought shameP 
 The Aristotelian philosophers stoutly denied the existence 
 of sun-spots as an imputation upon the power and purity of 
 what they conceived to be "the eye of the universe." "The 
 sun," they said, " could not be afflicted with ophthalmia ; " and 
 when Scheiner entreated his priestly father to look through 
 his telescope, and see for himself the spots, he was denied, 
 and gravely bidden to interpret what he thought he saw into 
 blemishes in his glass, or defects in his own eyesight. 
 
124 NOTES. 
 
 Note 36, p. 54. 
 
 " And, lohcii to Rossc^s tube it sioclled" 
 
 The largest reflecting telescope in the world. It was erected 
 by the Earl of Rosse on his estate at Birr Castle, Parsonstown, 
 Ireland, in the year 1S45, at a cost of sixty thousand dollars. 
 This remarkable instrument is of sixty feet focal length. Its 
 speculum, or mirror, is six feet in diameter, and weighs four 
 tons. 
 
 Note 37, p. 61. 
 
 " In charcoal and diamond Pin one and the same." 
 
 The beautiful gem the diamond is [Hire carbon in a crystal- 
 lized state, and differs from charcoal and graphite only in its 
 structure. When a bit of dry charcoal is burned in oxygen 
 gas, the sole product is carbonic acid (dioxide of carbon) ; 
 and when a piece of boa>-t (a clipping of a diamond) is kin- 
 dled to incandescence in a Bunsen flame, and plunged instantly 
 into a jar of oxygen, the ]:)roduct of the glowing combustion 
 is only carbonic-acid gas. The dull cinder and the dazzling 
 Koh-i-noor are twin-sisters. 
 
 Note 38, p. 65. 
 
 " By happy eyes that may behold the Sun.'''' 
 
 "Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the 
 eyes to behold the sun." — Eccles. xi. 7. 
 
NOTES. 125 
 
 Note 39, p. 76. 
 
 " Of time, hvo centuries, as light eaiilrcoard Jlics." 
 
 The distance of Siiius from our earth is computed at one 
 hundred and thirty millions of millions of miles; and, the 
 velocity of light being assumed as 190,000 miles a second, it 
 follows that a ray of light from "the dog-star" would take 
 over two hundred years to reach our planet. The actual velo- 
 city of light, however, is 192,500 miles a second. 
 
 Note 40, p. 77. 
 
 "Jehovah tells the number of their flames." 
 
 "He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all 
 by their names-" — P-s. cxlvii. 4. 
 
 Note 41, p. Si. 
 " The frightened people and their frightened king." 
 The appearance of comets in the olden times, and before 
 science had demonstrated their tenuous and even filmy nature, 
 created great alarm among all classes. They were regarded as 
 portents of war or pestilence, and strange rites were performed 
 to avert the dangers they threatened. 
 
 Note 42, p. 83. 
 " And sung to that as hitherto had sting," etc. 
 The "Owed to Coggia's Comet" was printed at the time of 
 the comet's appearance (with now slight variation) in the 
 " Graphic." 
 
1 26 A'O TES. 
 
 NOTK 43, p. 85. 
 
 " Whose circuit miles reach twenty thousand millions^ 
 
 There is a little poetical license here for the euphony of 
 the verse. The distance of Neptune from the sun being 
 2,862,000,000 miles, the orbit of the planet must be about six 
 times that distance, or something over seventeen thousand mil- 
 lions of miles ; and the planet requires nearly one hundred and 
 sixty-five of our years to accomplish his " lonely round." 
 
 Note 44, p. 92. 
 "^ fair, fresh book from Holmes's facile penT 
 " The Iron Gate and Other Poems," 82 pp., published by 
 Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., Boston. 
 
 Note 45, p. 95. 
 " And, as on tvell-marked viap of old Fraunhofer, 
 He'' II read the mystic lines upon — her hand." 
 Joseph von Fraunhofer, an optician and scientist of 
 Munich, was the inventor of the spectroscope, and the first 
 definite observer of the shadowy lines upon the spectrum of 
 the sun as seen through the new instrument. Of these lines, 
 to the number of nearly six hundred, he made a map, of such 
 accuracy that its authenticity has never been called in ques- 
 tion ; and while his six hundred lines have been multiplied, by 
 later observation with improved instruments, into more than 
 six thousand, Fraunhofer's map has not suffered the displace- 
 ment of one of its original striations. 
 
NOTES. 127 
 
 Note 46, p. 96. 
 
 " And rciido- Huxley faiiioiis for all timer 
 
 Professor Huxley is the reputed discoverer of the gray ooze, 
 — a peculiar slime of the bottom of the Adriatic and of the Bay 
 of Biscay, which he and Ilaeckel pronounced the ultimate 
 germ of all animal life. When the British Government sent 
 the ship "Challenger" on its famous mission for dredging the 
 deep to find this marvellous bioplastic deposit, and the best 
 chemists and microscopists of England tested it with crucible 
 and lens, and found it to be mere debris of dead organisms, 
 Professor Huxley recanted his unfortunate and hasty opinion 
 about it, and from that time " Bathybius " has been " a by- 
 word and a hissing." 
 
 Note 47, p. 96. 
 
 ^^And Darwiti's creed, that makes meti tailless monkeys." 
 
 The modifications of Mr. Darwin's early views and infer- 
 ences concerning the ape-origin of man, have in a measure 
 relieved that eminent physicist from the odium of teaching 
 directly that all men are descended from the monkey. His phi- 
 losophy of life was, however, unquestionably based upon the 
 assumed absence of design in the origin of species or m the 
 development of living organisms. By this theory, the highest 
 intellectual powers of man have been evolved "by the agency 
 of the blind, unconscious laws of nature." If sciolists have 
 out-Darwined their teacher, that teacher certainly gave them 
 the keynote of their preposterous conclusions. 
 
128 A'OTES. 
 
 Note 48, p. 96. 
 
 " On other banks than where the wild time groios.'''' 
 
 The reader will pardon the slight liberty the author has 
 here taken with the familiar words of Oberon, in " Midsummer- 
 Night's Dream" (act ii., scene ii.), — 
 
 " 1 know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows, 
 Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows." 
 
 Note 49, p. 97. 
 " iMy every dissonance with you departs^ 
 It is needless, perhaps, to quote the last stanza of "The 
 Coming Era " to persuade the reader that the Harvard poet 
 does not apprehend the divorce of Poetry and Science ; but its 
 beauty will be to him a sufficient apology for its appearance 
 here. It reads thus : — 
 
 '■ And so, in spite of all that Time is bringing, 
 Treasures of truth, and miracles of art. 
 Beauty and Love will keep the poet singing — 
 And song still live — the science of the heart." 
 
 Note 50, p. 99. 
 
 " One with the trtith God^s testaments deelare.^^ 
 
 It is an erroneous idea, however prevalent, that the ma- 
 jority of scientists at the present day are atheists, or even 
 agnostics; nor would it be a difficult task to show conclu- 
 sively that the numbers of these classes diminish rather than 
 increase. 
 
NOTES. 129 
 
 Note 51, p. 100. 
 
 " Till in the subtle tube the cozy slime 
 Diuindled to gypsum from its rank sublimed 
 
 Dr. Ernst Haeckel, a distinguished naturalist, and pro- 
 fessor in the University of Jena, is one of the foremost of the 
 atheistic philosophers of Germany. He proclaimed the dis- 
 covery by Huxley, of Bathybius, as being a widely e.xtended 
 sheet of protoplasm covering the bottom of the sea, and as 
 containing in itself the essential germ of all animal life. 
 Bathybius means "deep-sea life," and is an ooze or slime lying 
 upon deep-sea beds. When this wonderful substance was 
 fairly subjected to the microscope and to chemical tests, it 
 proved to be sulphate of lime, which, from its solution, crys- 
 tallized into gypsum. 
 
 Note 52, p. 100. 
 
 " To-day there are luhose wit and wisdom shape 
 Our manhood to the model of the ape.'''' 
 
 The extreme Darwinists have not yet all succumbed to the 
 force of logic or to the fire of wit, directed against their false 
 philosophy of man's origin. Against such the English laureate 
 utters his eloquent protest in that wonderful poem, " In Me- 
 moriam " (cxx. 3), — 
 
 " Let him, the wiser man, who springs 
 Hereafter up from childhood, shape 
 His actions like the greater ape — 
 But I was born for other tilings." 
 
130 NOTES. 
 
 Note 53, p. loi. 
 
 "i)j' tails, and half the weight of hitma>t hraiti.'^ 
 
 •Physiologists and anatomists tell us that the capacity of the 
 " brain-pan " in the lowest of existing men, compared with that 
 of the highest " man-ape," is as two to one : in other words, 
 the volume of brain in the monkey most like man is thirty- 
 four cubic inches, while that of the man is sixty-eight cubic 
 inches. Up to the present time a tailless monkey, or a tailed 
 man, has not been found as the long-looked-for " viissing liiihy 
 
 Note 54, p. 102. 
 
 " And the deep problems of the Book of Job 
 Our 7)iodern knowledge sho^os its how to probe." 
 
 Probably no book in the Bible has been as much illumined 
 to the earnest student as the Book of Job, which abounds in 
 subtle references to natural phenomena, and wherein are 
 many questions to which modern discovery has furnished 
 answers. A translation of this remarkable book by that dis- 
 tinguished Hebrew scholar, Professor Thomas J. Conant, 
 D.D., brings out in a very striking manner the significance 
 and subtlety of many of its scientific allusions, and will abun- 
 dantly reward the student for its careful review. 
 
 Note 55, p. 103. 
 
 " The creed sees only not so far as 7ae." 
 
 " ' God is law,' say the wise, O soul ! and let us rejoice ; 
 For if He thuiuler by law, the thunder is yet His voice: 
 
NOTES. 131 
 
 Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and spirit with spirit can meet; 
 Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands or feet." 
 
 — Tennyson, "The Higher Pantheism." 
 
 Note 56, p. 107. 
 
 " As all the morning stars together sn/zg.'" 
 
 " When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of 
 Ciod shouted for joy." — Job xxxviii. 7. 
 

 
 
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