At the Arts ⁄ Science Interface
- ENGINEERS’ CORNER
- CLOSE ENCOUNTERS of the TRIPLE KIND.
- OUT of AFRICA … THE STORY of YOU…
- ARTS/SCIENCE ‘ENCOUNTERS’: a Review
- ARTSCIENCE: first look-ahead to 2010
- Upon a Peak in Darien… New Vistas from Old Places
- CP Snow: Only Connect
- Whose Rise and Fall …?
- How Many Cultures? CP Snow and the Darwin Legacy
- Creative Break-Through at Sheffield University
The Ideas Exchange
What You've Been Saying
The Ideas Exchange
What Others Have Said
The PEST Anthology
- YET MORE PEST POEMS
- More ‘PEST’ Poems
- PEST Inaugural
- A Work in Progress: Poetry of Science and Technology
The CVN Archive
About This Blog
More ‘PEST’ Poems
I am an Engineer
I take the vision which comes from dreams
and apply the magic of science and mathematics,
adding the heritage of my profession
and my knowledge of nature’s materials
to create a design.
And when we have completed our task
all can see
that the dreams and plans have materialised
for the comfort and welfare of all.
I organise the efforts and skills of my fellow workers
employing the capital of the thrifty
and the products of many industries,
and together we work toward our goal
undaunted by hazards and obstacles.
I am an Engineer.I serve mankind by making dreams come true,
Anon. (This plaintive little poem, supplied by Professor Peter Radziszewski of McGill University, was reputedly found pinned to a site hut during the construction of the Konkan railway. I am grateful to Peter, too, for his translation of Solange LeBel’s very positive piece below.)
Jongleur d’humanité
Réinventer les formes
Rendre évanescentes les masses
Actualiser l’avenir
Pressentir l’ombre du futur.
Funambule des lignes
Trapéziste des angles
Jongleur d’humanité
Solange LeBel,
Étudiante en génie,
Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal
Reinvent forms
Make substances evanescent
Actualize tomorrow
Predict the shadow of the future
Graphic tight rope walker
Trigonometric trapeze artist
Juggler of humanity
Sonnet-To-Science Edgar Allan Poe
Science! True daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? Or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car,
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
(From ‘The Complete Poems and Stories of Edgar Allan Poe’ 1946)
Molecular Evolution
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL
At quite uncertain times and places,
The atoms left their heavenly path,
And by fortuitous embraces,
Engendered all that being hath.
And though they seem to cling together,
And form “associations” here,
Yet, soon or late, they burst their tether,
And through the depths of space career.
So we who sat, oppressed with science,
As British asses, wise and grave,
Are now transformed to wild Red Lions,
As round our prey we ramp and rave.
Thus, by a swift metamorphosis,
Wisdom turns wit, and science joke,
Nonsense is incense to our noses,
For when Red Lions speak, they smoke.
Hail, Nonsense! dry nurse of Red Lions,
From thee the wise their wisdom learn,
From thee they cull those truths of science,
Which into thee again they turn.
What combinations of ideas,
Nonsense alone can wisely form!
What sage has half the power that she has,
To take the towers of Truth by storm?
Yield, then, ye rules of rigid reason!
Dissolve, thou too, too solid sense!
Melt into nonsense for a season,
Then in some nobler form condense.
Soon, all too soon, the chilly morning,
This flow of soul will crystallize,
Then those who Nonsense now are scorning,
May learn, too late, where wisdom lies.
James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) was a Scottish physicist,mainstream to the understanding of electromagnetic waves.
THE GOSSAMER Philip Appleman
Sixty miles from land the gentle trades
that silk the Yankee clippers to Cathay
sift a million gossamers, like tides
of fluff above the menace of the sea.
These tiny spiders spin their bits of webbing
and ride the air as schooners ride the ocean;
the Beagle trapped a thousand in its rigging,
small aeronauts on some elusive mission.
The Megatherium, done to extinction
by its own bigness, makes a counterpoint
to gossamers, who breathe us this small lesson:
for survival, it’s the little things that count.
No.4 from ‘ Darwin’s Bestiary’ by Philip Appleman (from ‘New and Selected Poems 1956-96’. University of Arkansas Press).