James Clerk Maxwell: Verses about Power

Oft in the night, from this lone room
I long to fly o’er land and sea,
To pierce the dark, dividing gloom,
And join myself to thee.

And thou to me wouldst gladly fly,
I know thee well, my own true wife!
We feel, that when we live not nigh,
We lose the crown of life.

Yet soon I hope, at dead of night,
To meet where all is strange beside,
And mid the train’s resounding flight
To have thee by my side.

Then shall I feel that thou art near,
Joined hand to hand and soul to soul;
Short will that happy night appear,
As through the dark we roll.

Then shall the secret of the will,
That dares not enter into bliss;
That longs for love, yet lingers still,
Be solved in one long kiss.

I, drinking deep of thy rich love,
Thou feeling all the strength of mine,
Our souls will rise in faith above
The cares which make us pine.

Till I give thee, thou giving me,
As that which either loves the best,
To Him that loved us both, that He
May take us to His rest.

Wandering and weak are all our prayers,
And fleeting half the gifts we crave;
Love only, cleansed from sins and cares,
Shall live beyond the grave.

Strengthen our love, O Lord, that we
May in Thine own great love believe
And, opening all our soul to Thee,
May Thy free gift receive.

All powers of mind, all force of will,
May lie in dust when we are dead,
But love is ours, and shall be still,
When earth and seas are fled.

The mounted disk of ebonite
Has whirled before, nor whirled in vain;
Rowland of Troy, that doughty knight,
Convection currents did obtain
In such a disk, of power to wheedle,
From its loved North the subtle needle.

’Twas when Sir Rowland, as a stage
From Troy to Baltimore, took rest
In Berlin, there old Archimage,
Armed him to follow up this quest;
Right glad to find himself possessor
Of the irrepressible Professor.

But wouldst thou twirl that disk once more,
Then follow in Childe Rowland’s train,
To where in busy Baltimore
He brews the bantlings of his brain;
As he may do who still prefers
One Rowland to two Olivers.

But Rowland,—no, nor Oliver,-—
Could get electromotive force,
Which fact and reason both aver,
Has change of some kind as its source,
Out of a disk in swift rotation
Without the least acceleration.

But with your splendid roundabout
Of mighty power, new-hung and greasy,
With galvanometer so stout,
A new research would be as easy;
A test which might perchance disclose,
Which way the electric current flows.

Take then a coil of copper pure,
And fix it on your whirling table;
Place the electrodes firm and sure
As near the axis as you’re able,
And soon you’ll learn the way to work it,
With galvanometer in circuit.

Not while the coil in spinning sleeps,
On her smooth axle swift and steady;
But when against the stops she sweeps,
To watch the light-spot then be ready,
That you may learn from its deflexion
The electric current’s true direction.

It may be that it does not move,
Or moves but for some other reason;
Then let it be your boast to prove
(Though some may think it out of season,
And worthy of a fossil Druid),
That there is no Electric Fluid.

Ye British Asses, who expect to hear
Ever some new thing,
I’ve nothing new to tell, but what, I fear,
May be a true thing.
For Taft 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 ignoranee they throw
Into the bargain;
The shade of Leitnitz mutters from below
Horrible jargon.
The phrases of last century in this
Linger to play tricks-—
Vis Viva and Vis Mortua and Vis
Acceleratrix:—

Those long-nabbed words that to our text books still
Cling by their titles,
And from them creep, as entozoa 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 speetre!
Thy reign, O Force! is over. Now no more
Heed we thine action;
Repulsion leaves us 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 frown pole to pole,
Free front all forces.
Rejoice I 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 definition, like a nose of wax,
Suit each occassion,-—

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.

O academic muse that hast for long
Charmed all the world with thy disciples’ song,
As myrtle bushes must give place to trees,
Our humbler strains can now no longer please.
Look down for once, inspire me in these lays.
In lofty verse to sing our Rector's praise.

The mighty wheel of Time to light has rolled
That golden age by ancient bards foretold.
Minerva now descends upon our land,
And scatters knowledge with unsparing hand;
Long since Ulysses saw the heavenly maid,
In Mentor's form and Mentor’s dress arrayed,
But now to Cambrian lands the goddess flies,
And drops in Williams’ form from out the skies;
And as at dawn the brilliant orb of light,
With his bright beams dispels the gloomy night,
So sunk in ignorance our land he finds,
But with his learning drives it from our minds,
And he, a hero, shall with joyful eyes
See crowds of heroes all around him rise;
With great Minerva's wisdom he shall rule
Those boisterous youths—the rector's class at school,
And when in the fifth class begins his power,
And he begins to teach us, from that hour
Dame Poetry begins to show her face,
And witty epigrams the plaster grace;
There growing wild are often to be seen
The names of boys that Duxes erst have been,
And at the chimney-piece is seen the same
All thickly scribbled with the boobie's name.

· · · · ·

Ne’er shall the dreadful tawse be heard again,
The lash resounding, and the cry of pain;
Carmichael's self will change (O that he would!)
From the imperative to wishing mood;
Ye years roll on, and haste the expected time
When flogging boys shall be accounted crime.

But come, thy real nature let us see,
No more the rector but the goddess be,
Come in thy might and shake the deep profound,
Let the Academy with shouts resound,
While radiant glory all thy head adorns,
And slippers on thy feet protect thy corns;
O may I live so long on earth below,
That I may learn the things that thou dost know!
Then will I praise thee in heroic verse
So good that Linus’ will be counted worse;
The Thracian Orpheus never will compare
With me, nor Dods that got the prize last year.
But stay, O stay upon this earth a while,
Even now thou seest the world's approving smile,
And when thou goest to taste celestial joys,
Let thy great nephew teach the mourning boys,
Then mounting to the skies upon the wind,
Lead captive ignorance in chains behind.

In the very beginnings of science, the parsons, who managed things then,
Being handy with hammer and chisel, made gods in the likeness of men;
Till Commerce arose, and at length some men of exceptional power
Supplanted both demons and gods by the atoms, which last to this hour.
Yet they did not abolish the gods, but they sent them well out of the way,
With the rarest of nectar to drink, and blue fields of nothing to sway.
From nothing comes nothing, they told us, nought happens by chance, but by fate;
There is nothing but atoms and void, all else is mere whims out of date!
Then why should a man curry favour with beings who can-not exist,
To compass some petty promotion in nebulous kingdoms of mist?
But not by the rays of the sun, nor the glittering shafts of the day,
Must the fear of the gods be dispelled, but by words, and their wonderful play.
So treading a path all untrod, the poet-philosopher sings
Of the seeds of the mighty world—the first-beginnings of things;
How freely he scatters his atoms before the beginning of years;
How he clothes them with force as a garment, those small incompressible spheres!
Nor yet does he leave them hard-hearted—he dowers them with love and with hate,
Like spherical small British Asses in infinitesimal state;
Till just as that living Plato, whom foreigners nickname Plateau,
Drops oil in his whisky-and-water (for foreigners sweeten it so),
Each drop keeps apart from the other, enclosed in a flexible skin,
Till touched by the gentle emotion evolved by the prick of a pin:
Thus in atoms a simple collision excites a sensational thrill,
Evolved through all sorts of emotion, as sense, understanding, and will;
(For by laying their heads all together, the atoms, as coun-cillors do,
May combine to express an opinion to every one of them new).
There is nobody here, I should say, has felt true indignation at all,
Till an indignation meeting is held in the Ulster Hall;
Then gathers the wave of emotion, then noble feelings arise,
Till you all pass a resolution which takes every man by surprise.
Thus the pure elementary atom, the unit of mass and of thought,
By force of mere juxtaposition to life and sensation is brought;
So, down through untold generations, transmission of struc-tureless germs
Enables our race to inherit the thoughts of beasts, fishes, and worms.
We honour our fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grand-mothers too;
But how shall we honour the vista of ancestors now in our view?
First, then, let us honour the atom, so lively, so wise, and so small;
The atomists next let us praise, Epicurus, Lucretius, and all;
Let us damn with faint praise Bishop Butler, in whom many atoms combined
To form that remarkable structure, it pleased him to call—his mind.
Last, praise we the noble body to which, for the time, we belong,
Ere yet the swift whirl of the atoms has hurried us, ruth-less, along,
The British Association—like Leviathan worshipped by Hobbes,
The incarnation of wisdom, built up of our witless nobs,
Which will carry on endless discussions, when I, and prob-ably you,
Have melted in infinite azure—in English, till all is blue.

Rouse ye! torpid daylight-dreamers, cast your carking cares away!
As calm air to troubled water, so my night is to your day;
All the dreary day you labour, groping after common sense,
And your eyes ye will not open on the night's magnificence.
Ye would scow were I to tell you how a guiding radiance gleams
On the outer world of action from my inner world of dreams.

When, with mind released from study, late I lay note down to sleep,
From the midst of facts and figures, into boundless space I leap;
For the inner world grows wider as the outer disappears,
And the soul, retiring inward, finds itself beyond the spheres.
Then, to this unbroken sameness, some fantastic dream succeeds,
Vague emotions rise and ripen into thoughts and words and deeds.
Old impressions, long forgotten, range themselves in Time and Space,
Till I recollect the features of some once familiar place.
Then from valley into valley in my dreaming course I roam,
Till the wanderings of my fancy end, where they began, at home.
Calm it lies in morning twilight, while each streamlet far and wide
Still retains its hazy mantle, borrowed from the mountain's side;
Every knoll is now an island every wooded bank a shore,
To the lake of quiet vapour that has spread the valley o’er.
Sheep are couched on every hillock, waiting till the morning dawns,
Hares are on their early rambles, limping o’er the dewy lawns.
All within the house is silent, darkened all the chambers seem,
As with noiseless step I enter, gliding onwards in my dream.

What! has Time run out his cycle, do the years return again?
Are there treasure-caves in Dreamland where departed days remain?
I have leapt the bars of distance—left the life that late I led—
I remember years and labours as a tale that I have read;
Yet my heart is hot within me, for I feel the gentle power
Of the spirits that still love me, waiting for this sacred hour.
Yes,—I know the forms that meet me are but phantoms of the brain,
For they walk in mortal bodies, and they have not ceased from pain.
Oh! those signs of human weakness, left behind for ever now,
Dearer far to me than glories round a fancied seraph's brow.
Oh! the old familiar voices ! Oh! the patient waiting eyes!
Let me live with them in dreamland, while the world in slumber lies!
For by bonds of sacred honour will they guard my soul in sleep
From the spells of aimless fancies, that around my senses creep.
They will link the past and present into one continuous life,
While I feel their hope, their patience, nerve me for the daily strife.
For it is not all a fancy that our lives and theirs are one,
And we know that all we see is but an endless work begun.
Part is left in Nature's keeping, part is entered into rest,
Part remains to grow and ripen, hidden in some living breast.
What is ours we know not, either when we wake or when we sleep,
But we know that Love and Honour, day and night, are ours to keep.
What though Dreams be wandering fancies, by some lawless force entwined,
Empty bubbles, floating upwards through the current of the mind?
There are powers and thoughts within us, that we know not, till they rise
Through the stream of conscious action from where Self in secret lies.
But when Will and Sense are silent, by the thoughts that come and go,
We may trace the rocks and eddies in the hidden depths below.

Let me dream my dream till morning; let my mind run slow and clear,
Free from all the world's distraction, feeling that the Dead are near,
Let me wake, and see my duty lie before me straight and plain.
Let me rise refreshed, and ready to begin my work again.