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Famous Science Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Science poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous science poems. These examples illustrate what a famous science poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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by Dickinson, Emily
...the year
At any other period.
   When March is scarcely here

A color stands abroad
   On solitary hills
That science cannot overtake,
   But human nature feels.

It waits upon the lawn;
   It shows the furthest tree
Upon the furthest slope we know;
   It almost speaks to me.

Then, as horizons step,
   Or noons report away,
Without the formula of sound,
   It passes, and we stay:

A quality of loss
   Affecting our content,
As trade had sudde...Read more of this...



by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...e is heard, 
Fierce song of battle kindling martial rage 
And desp'rate purpose in heroic minds: 
But sacred truth fair science and each grace 
Of virtue born; health, elegance and ease 
And temp'rate mirth in social intercourse 
Convey rich pleasure to the mind; and oft 
The sacred muse in heaven-breathing song 
Doth wrap the soul in extasy divine, 
Inspiring joy and sentiment which not 
The tale of war or song of Druids gave. 
The song of Druids or the tale of war 
With...Read more of this...

by Poe, Edgar Allan
...of God upon that star:
Sweet was that error- sweeter still that death-
Sweet was that error- even with us the breath
Of Science dims the mirror of our joy-
To them 'twere the Simoom, and would destroy-
For what (to them) availeth it to know
That Truth is Falsehood- or that Bliss is Woe?
Sweet was their death- with them to die was rife
With the last ecstasy of satiate life-
Beyond that death no immortality-
But sleep that pondereth and is not "to be'!-
And there- oh! may my we...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...solid Pow'r of Understanding fails;
Where Beams of warm Imagination play,
The Memory's soft Figures melt away.
One Science only will one Genius fit;
So vast is Art, so narrow Human Wit;
Not only bounded to peculiar Arts,
But oft in those, confin'd to single Parts.
Like Kings we lose the Conquests gain'd before,
By vain Ambition still to make them more:
Each might his sev'ral Province well command,
Wou'd all but stoop to what they understand.

First follow NATURE,...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
..., because you build for mankind, I build for you! 
O well-beloved stone-cutters! I lead them who plan with decision and science, 
I lead the present with friendly hand toward the future. 

Bravas to all impulses sending sane children to the next age! 
But damn that which spends itself, with no thought of the stain, pains, dismay, feebleness
 it
 is bequeathing.

9
I listened to the Phantom by Ontario’s shore, 
I heard the voice arising, demanding bards; 
By them, all ...Read more of this...



by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...t yawns and looks another way
For a less negligible adversary. 
Away with wonder, then; though I’m at odds 
With conscience, even tonight, for good assurance 
That it was I, or chance and I together, 
Did all that sowing. If I seem to you
To be a little bitten by the question, 
Without a miracle it might be true; 
The miracle is to me that I’m not eaten 
Long since to death of it, and that you sit 
With nothing more agreeable than a ghost.
If you had thought a whi...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...to come. 
Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutor'd mind 
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; 
His soul proud Science never taught to stray 
Far as the solar walk, or milky way; 
Yet simple Nature to his hope has giv'n, 
Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heav'n; 
Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd, 
Some happier island in the watry waste, 
Where slaves once more their native land behold, 
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold! 
To Be, conten...Read more of this...

by Ginsberg, Allen
...ed house-banks over York Avenue, late may-green trees 
surrounding Rockefellers' blue domed medical arbor-- 
Geodesic science at the waters edge--Cars running up 
East River Drive, & parked at N.Y. Hospital's oval door 
where perfect tulips flower the health of a thousand sick souls 
trembling inside hospital rooms. Triboro bridge steel-spiked 
penthouse orange roofs, sunset tinges the river and in a few 
Bronx windows, some magnesium vapor brilliances're 
...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...childless; in the night which she had made
For lofty secure flight Athena's owl itself hath strayed.

Nor much with Science do I care to climb,
Although by strange and subtle witchery
She drew the moon from heaven: the Muse Time
Unrolls her gorgeous-coloured tapestry
To no less eager eyes; often indeed
In the great epic of Polymnia's scroll I love to read

How Asia sent her myriad hosts to war
Against a little town, and panoplied
In gilded mail with jewelled scimitar,
Whi...Read more of this...

by Moore, Marianne
...,
"I am yours to command."
"Everything to do with love is mystery;
it is more than a day's work
to investigate this science."
One sees that it is rare --
that striking grasp of opposites
opposed each to the other, not to unity,
which in cycloid inclusiveness
has dwarfed the demonstration
of Columbus with the egg --
a triumph of simplicity --
that charitive Euroclydon
of frightening disinterestedness
which the world hates,
admitting:

"I am such a cow,
if I had a sorro...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...to highth up grown, 
The Tempter, all impassioned, thus began. 
O sacred, wise, and wisdom-giving Plant, 
Mother of science! now I feel thy power 
Within me clear; not only to discern 
Things in their causes, but to trace the ways 
Of highest agents, deemed however wise. 
Queen of this universe! do not believe 
Those rigid threats of death: ye shall not die: 
How should you? by the fruit? it gives you life 
To knowledge; by the threatener? look on me, 
Me, who have to...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...myths Asiatic—the primitive fables. 

Not you alone, proud truths of the world! 
Nor you alone, ye facts of modern science! 
But myths and fables of eld—Asia’s, Africa’s fables!
The far-darting beams of the spirit!—the unloos’d dreams! 
The deep diving bibles and legends; 
The daring plots of the poets—the elder religions; 
—O you temples fairer than lilies, pour’d over by the rising sun! 
O you fables, spurning the known, eluding the hold of the known, mounting to heave...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
.... 

I accept reality, and dare not question it; 
Materialism first and last imbuing. 

Hurrah for positive science! long live exact demonstration!
Fetch stonecrop, mixt with cedar and branches of lilac; 
This is the lexicographer—this the chemist—this made a grammar of the
 old cartouches; 
These mariners put the ship through dangerous unknown seas; 
This is the geologist—this works with the scalpel—and this is a
 mathematician. 

Gentlemen! to you th...Read more of this...

by Bradstreet, Anne
...ch,
3.8 As might my self, and others, profit much:
3.9 With nurture trained up in virtue's Schools;
3.10 Of Science, Arts, and Tongues, I know the rules;
3.11 The manners of the Court, I likewise know,
3.12 Nor ignorant what they in Country do.
3.13 The brave attempts of valiant Knights I prize
3.14 That dare climb Battlements, rear'd to the skies.
3.15 The snorting Horse, the Trumpet, Drum I like,
3.16 The glist'ring Sword, and wel...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...joys whose earthly names
Were never told can form and sense bestow;
And man hath sped his instinct to outgo
The step of science; and against her shames
Imagination stakes out heavenly claims,
Building a tower above the head of woe. 
Nor is there fairer work for beauty found
Than that she win in nature her release
From all the woes that in the world abound:
Nay with his sorrow may his love increase,
If from man's greater need beauty redound,
And claim his tears for homage ...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...ould have a care to stay alive
While in his heart he feels no violence 
Laid on his humor and intelligence 
When infant Science makes a pleasant face 
And waves again that hollow toy, the Race; 
No planetary trap where souls are wrought
For nothing but the sake of being caught 
And sent again to nothing will attune 
Itself to any key of any reason 
Why man should hunger through another season 
To find out why ’twere better late than soon 
To go away and let the sun and moon 
...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...f telegraph 
They flashed a saucy message to and fro 
Between the mimic stations; so that sport 
Went hand in hand with Science; otherwhere 
Pure sport; a herd of boys with clamour bowled 
And stumped the wicket; babies rolled about 
Like tumbled fruit in grass; and men and maids 
Arranged a country dance, and flew through light 
And shadow, while the twangling violin 
Struck up with Soldier-laddie, and overhead 
The broad ambrosial aisles of lofty lime 
Made noise with bees ...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...ow how listlessly we tried

Again in Leeds, a tiny flat with the white telephone that never rang

Next to the Christian Science Church my sad grandmother trekked to with

Her cancer-ridden spine. It was doomed from the start. The previous

Tenants had ended in divorce. If the certain salesman and his gleaming

Bride had failed to make it, how could we? Our moves from Huddersfield



And back became more frantic and our peace more fragile.

You always felt lone...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...ure brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:—
We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.
...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...e near, my spouse, and let me ba* thy cheek *kiss 18
Ye shoulde be all patient and meek,
And have a *sweet y-spiced* conscience, *tender, nice*
Since ye so preach of Jobe's patience.
Suffer alway, since ye so well can preach,
And but* ye do, certain we shall you teach* *unless
That it is fair to have a wife in peace.
One of us two must bowe* doubteless: *give way
And since a man is more reasonable
Than woman is, ye must be suff'rable.
What aileth you to grudge* th...Read more of this...

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