TECHNICAL NOTE: The great majority of the links below are to
scanned antique books at the Internet Archive, most of them
anthologies. Poems frequently run for several pages; when coming
to the apparent end of a poem, turn the page to make sure!
Geology ---
Meteorology ---
Palæontology ---
Space Science ---
People
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Literally Gnostic Neo-Platonist creation myth. There
is an absolute duality between the evil material world and God, who did not
so much create the universe as organise it through the
intermediation of angels. Blends state-of-the-art geological and geographical
information with cabalistic and magical lore.
Boker, George Henry:
A Ballad of Sir John Franklin
Lord Byron:
Darkness Possibly inspired by the atmospheric effects of the
Mount Tambora eruption in 1815, this is Byron's image of a
devastated future Earth.
Campbell, Thomas:
Lines Written in a Blank Leaf of La Perouse's "Voyages"
The large and well-funded scientific expedition commanded by the
Comte de Lapérouse vanished
in the Pacific in 1789, a mystery that fired the Nineteenth Century
imagination.
Channing, William Ellery:
The Wanderer, Part VI: The Cape
Discusses its prehistory, although more interested in later times.
Cowper, William:
From The Task: Book III
(Starting at 'Some drill and bore // The solid earth, and from the strata there'). Strong religiously motivated attack on science (especially geology and astronomy), although later presents a less detailed vision of the 'Christian philosopher', epitomised by Newton.
Däubler, Theodor:
Das Nordlicht
An epic poem which is both a critique of technological society and
the elaboration of a pseudo-scientific mythology involving the aurora,
lava-pools, and the sun.
Dewart, Edward Hartley:
The Polar Sea Reflects the Nineteenth Century belief in
open water at the North Pole.
Dickinson, Emily:
The Reticent Volcano
Dixon, Richard Watson:
Sir John Franklin
Foley, J. W.:
Scientific Proof
Actually more "mathematical proof". Although not terribly funny, it contains
some nice phrases (e.g. "the real square root of North")
and is a memento of the several centuries when polar exploration
was closely linked to mathematical astronomy.
Harte, Bret:
An Arctic Vision
Havergal, Frances Ridley:
Enigma No. 9
Lava.
Havergal, Frances Ridley:
Life Crystals
Extended geological metaphor.
Herman, Jay H.:
Canyon Diablo About the Arizona Meteor Crater.
Herman, Jay H.:
The Desert
Herman, Jay H.:
Night on the Desert
Holmes, Oliver Wendell:
A Farewell to Agassiz
A comic blessing as the Harvard celebrity-scientist embarks for Brazil:
may Heaven keep him safe "from every beast and vermin // that to think of
sets us squirmin'" so that he may return with "a million novel data //
about the articulata."
Holmes, Oliver Wendell:
Humboldt's Birthday A centennial tribute to Humboldt, comparing
him favourably to his almost exact contemporary, Napoleon.
Masefield, John:
What am I, Life?
"A thing of watery salt held in cohesion by unresting cells."
Masters, Edgar Lee:
Mr. and Mrs. Sibley: Two connected poems very typical
of the Spoon River Anthology;
the second uses Masters' favourite scientific metaphors,
gravitation and stratigraphy.
Nicholson, Meredith:
The Earth
... may eventually all be explored, but will still be
majestic and powerful.
Noel, Roden:
The Call of the Caves
A late example of geological Romanticism.
Noyes, Alfred: The Book of the Earth
History of geology and evolutionary theory from Pythagoras to Darwin.
Published in 1925 and not available online because of copyright issues.
Rankine, W.J.M.: Iron
'A geological, economical, and patriotic song.'
Seward, Anna:
Mount Etna
Shows an unusual interest in physical geography.
Sill, Edward Rowland:
The Polar Sea
Smith, Horace:
Address to the Alabaster Sarcophagus Lately Deposited in the British
Museum
The alabster was already immensely ancient
when the Egyptians carved it. Probably Smith's most interesting science
poem.
Smith, Langdon:
Evolution
A love-story spanning geological time.
Stedman, Edmund Clarence:
The Descent into the Crater
About sulphur-gathering in a Mexican volcano.
Taylor, Bert Leston:
The Soil of Kansas: Parodies the florid writing of an
agricultural article by setting it as verse.
Thompson, Francis:
An Anthem of Earth
A rather long poem about the planet that is both the mother and the grave of humans, plesiosaurs, and others.
Tilton, Theodore:
A Curiosity in Conchology
About an ancient egg-shell; meant to be humourous.
Timrod, Henry:
The Arctic Voyager
Todd, Mabel Loomis:
Kilauea which she visited on a scientific expedition to the
Pacific.
Tupper, Martin:
Of This World's Age
Promotes the common pre-Darwin catastrophist creationism, with an
old earth but a young humanity.
Very, Jones:
The Glacial Marks on our Hills
Very strong geology poem. (Last stanza on next page.)
Very, Jones:
Ship Rock
is a glacial erratic, but this fact is of minor interest to the poet, who is more concerned with humans and with God.
Whitman, Walt:
The World Below the Brine The deep sea
(one of the Nineteenth Century's
scientific frontiers) as an alien universe.
Wordsworth, William:
The Excursion, Book III:
Much geological imagery, some of it technical.
Wordsworth, William:
The Pass of Kirkstone :
Geological time.
METEOROLOGY:
- Anonymous:
Ozone.
Still accented on the last syllable in Nineteenth Century English.
- Lord Byron:
Darkness
Possibly inspired by the atmospheric effects of the
Mount Tambora eruption in 1815, this is Byron's image of a
devastated future Earth.
- Melville, Herman:
Pebbles
A difficult poem. The first
stanza alludes to government weather-bureaux, then a controversial innovation.
- Pike, Gen. Albert:
Lightning
- Ruskin, John:
Fragment from a Meterological Journal
Meteorology was something of a fad in the 1830s, and young Ruskin
participated.
- Very, Jones:
The Meteorologists
Science is all very well, but only if it leads to higher transcendental truths.
PALÆONTOLOGY:
See also Evolution
and Eternity/Deep Time.
"A Lay of the Severn Sea".
A long poem about the West of England and the author's religious
views, partly occasioned by fossil discoveries in
Banwell
Caves and elsewhere. Like the other scientifically-inclined
clergymen who explored the caves, Bowles was an
Old Earth Creationist, seeking evidence of both the Flood and
the forgotten ages before it.
Channing, William Ellery:
The Wanderer, Part VI: The Cape
Discusses its prehistory, although more interested in later times.
Dawes, Rufus:
The Deluge
"D. M. S.":
The Dinosaur
To a skeleton in a museum. (From Punch.)
Emerson, Edwin, Sr.:
The Monk of the Tyrol Eight-page anti-religious
geology poem.
Field, Charles Kellogg:
In Geology Hour
Fossil bird never dreamed he would someday contribute to education.
Freneau, Philip Morin:
American Antiquity Advocates the
view that life (including humans) has independently originated many times
by spontaneous generation; American wildlife and American Indians did not
"from bleak Kamschatka come ... No! --- from this dust, this common
dust, they drew their different forms." (The poem seems to be unfinished.)
Guiterman, Arthur:
Tea with a Dinosaur "Rise, oh, rise and smash the crockery!"
Hardy, Thomas:
In a Museum:
To a fossil bird.
Harte, Bret:
A Geological Madrigal
Holmes, Oliver Wendell:
A Farewell to Agassiz
A comic blessing as the Harvard celebrity-scientist embarks for Brazil:
may Heaven keep him safe "from every beast and vermin // that to think of
sets us squirmin'" so that he may return with "a million novel data //
about the articulata."
Holmes, Oliver Wendell:
To Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg
Diatom expert and pioneer of invertebrate palæontology.
Masters, Edgar Lee:
Tyrannosaurus, or Burning Letters:
"He came and went, and what's your soul // And what is mine, with their
crying needs? ... To think of monsters Mesozoic // Brightens though it dries no
tears. // I'll dream for life of our walks by the river. // That was March and it's now July //
And this remains: I'll love you forever. // Burn up the letters now. Goodbye."
Smith, James:
The Mammoth
Satire on Napoleon as the "modern mammoth", interesting mostly because
it reflects the contemporary opinion that the mammoth was a sort of
tyrannosaurus-like carnivore.
Smith, Langdon:
Evolution
A love-story spanning geological time.
Stedman, Edmund Clarence:
The Skull in the Gold Drift
Catastrophist version of prehistoric California.
Stephens, J. Burton:
The Power of Science
Meant to be comic; anti-evolution, anti-science, and anti-feminism.
Stopes, Marie:
Last night as I lay sleeping...
Palæobotanical verse from Stopes's newsletter The Sportophyte.
Taylor, Bert Leston:
The Dinosaur: The famous ditty about the supposed
posterior brain of Brachiosaurus.
Thompson, Francis:
An Anthem of Earth
A rather long poem about the planet that is both the mother and the grave of humans, plesiosaurs, and others.
Very, Jones:
To the Fossil Flower
Whether it lived before or after the arrival of humans--perhaps it was even part of the original creation!--it exists now to awaken thoughts of love and of deep time.
Wood, C. E. S.:
Birth Earlier Than Death
Future and (mesozoic) past are somehow linked. This is part of an antinomian paean to anarchy.
Wordsworth, William:
The River Duddon, II:
A vision of prehistory.
SPACE SCIENCE (mainly AURORA):
- Däubler, Theodor:
Das Nordlicht
An epic poem which is both a critique of technological society and
the elaboration of a pseudo-scientific mythology involving the aurora,
lava-pools, and the sun.
- Dickinson, Emily:
Aurora
"Disdaining men and oxygen // For arrogance of them."
- Dickinson, Emily:
Aurora is the Effort
Arguably one of her best quatrains, although little known.
- Einar Benediktsson:
Northern Lights
- Hawker, Robert Stephen:
Aurora
- Melville, Herman:
Aurora Borealis
Treated as a metaphor for the armies of the American Civil War.
- Service, Robert W.:
The Ballad of the Northern Lights
A tall tale inspired by Nineteenth Century geophysical speculations.
- Taylor, Benjamin Franklin:
The Northern Lights
- Very, Jones:
The Zodiacal Light
Mentions several theories of its origin.
- Wilcox, Carlos:
Sights and Sounds of the Night
Meaning the
Northern Lights. The question of whether the aurora produces
a sound was much debated in the Nineteenth Century.
SCIENTISTS: Geologists and Palæontologists
- Holmes, Oliver Wendell:
A Farewell to Agassiz
A comic blessing as the Harvard celebrity-scientist embarks for Brazil:
may Heaven keep him safe "from every beast and vermin // that to think of
sets us squirmin'" so that he may return with "a million novel data //
about the articulata."
- Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth:
The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz
- Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth:
Three Friends of Mine
one of them often thought to be Agassiz; see Sonnet III.
- Holmes, Oliver Wendell:
To Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg
Diatom expert and pioneer of invertebrate palæontology.
- Holmes, Oliver Wendell:
Humboldt's Birthday
A centennial tribute to Humboldt, comparing
him favourably to his almost exact contemporary, Napoleon.
- Stopes, Marie:
To Captain Scott:
Stopes considered joining Scott's ill-fated Antarctic expedition as a naturalist.
