Poetry Friday

Happy Friday! Today's poem in honor of National Poetry Month is from ThermoPoetics: Energy in Victorian Literature and Science by Barri J.  Gold.

 

 

 

 

 

Report on Tait’s Lecture on Force:—B.A., 1876
James Clerk Maxwell

 

Ye British Asses, who expect to hear

                        Ever some new thing,

I’ve nothing to tell, but what, I fear,

                        May be a true thing.

For Tait comes with his plummet and his line,

                                    Quick to detect your

Old bosh new dressed in what you call a fine

                        Popular lecture.

 

Whence comes that most peculiar smattering,

                        Heard in our section?

Pure nonsense, to a scientific swing

                        Drilled to perfection?

That small word “Force,” they make a barber’s block,

                        Ready to put on

Meanings most strange and various, fit to shock

                        Pupils of Newton.

 

Ancient and foreign ignorance they throw

                        Into the bargain;

The shade of Leibnitz mutters from below

                        Horrible jargon.

The phrases of the last century in this

                        Linger to play tricks—

Vis Viva and Vis Mortua and Vis 

                        Acceleratrix:—

 

Those long-nebbed words that to our text books still

                        Cling by their titles,

And from them creep, as entozoan will,

                        Into our vitals.

But see! Tait writes in lucid symbols clear

                        One small equation;

And Force becomes of Energy a mere

                        Space-variation.

 

Force, then, is Force, but mark you! not a thing,

                        Only a Vector;

Thy barbèd arrows now have lost their sting,

                        Impotent spectre!

Thy reign, O Force! is over. Now no more

                        Heed we thine action;

Repulsion leaves where we were before,

                        So does attraction.

 

Both Action and Reaction now are gone.

                        Just ere they vanished,

Stress joined their hands in peace, and made them one;

                        Then they were banished.

The Universe is free from pole to pole,

                        Free from all forces.

Rejoice! ye stars—like blessed gods ye roll

                        On in your courses.

 

No more the arrows of the Wrangler race,

                        Piercing shall wound you.

Forces no more, those symbols of disgrace,

                        Dare to surround you:

But those whose statements baffle all attacks,

                        Safe by evasion,— 

Whose definitions, like a nose of wax,

                        Suit each occasion,—

 

Whose unreflected rainbow far surpassed

                        All our inventions,

Whose very energy appears at last

                        Scant of dimensions:—

Are these the gods in whom ye put your trust,

                        Lordlings and ladies?

The hidden potency of cosmic dust

                        Drives them to Hades.

 

While you, brave Tait! who know so well the way

                        Forces to scatter,

Calmly await the slow but sure decay,

                        Even of Matter.