TO MADAME CURIE
By:
November 26, 2024
A series dedicated to poems, published c. 1900–1935, the Radium Age sf-adjacent themes of which include: dystopia and utopia, far-out mathematics and the fourth dimension, Afro-futurism, catastrophe, future war, new technologies, scientific breakthrough, dehumanization, cosmic awe, disenchantment and unseen forces, unknowable aliens and singularity. Research and selection by Joshua Glenn; thematic index here.
How great her travail, who went forth to
find
Out of creation’s void, the hidden spark;
The glowing substance that should heal
mankind,
The light elusive, springing from the dark.
How beautiful her ardour, to explore
Those mighty boundaries that yield no rest.
How patient was the brooding love that
bore
The splendour of the burden at her breast.
How true to love was she, who yielded
all —
The rich and subtle purpose of her brain;
Her heart, her soul, her body, to the call,
And paid the price immortal, for our gain.
Down in the darkness of creation’s womb
How long, how long the enchanted secret
lay,
Until the hand of science from the tomb
Brought forth her child into the light of day.
— Excerpt from an odd poem I came across in the anthology Songs of Science (1930), ed. Virginia Shortridge. Looks like it first appeared in Morgan’s collection Because of Beauty (1922).
RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF POETRY: Stephen Spender’s THE PYLONS | George Sterling’s THE TESTIMONY OF THE SUNS | Archibald MacLeish’s EINSTEIN | Thomas Thornely’s THE ATOM | C.S. Lewis’s DYMER | Stephen Vincent Benét’s METROPOLITAN NIGHTMARE | Robert Frost’s FIRE AND ICE | Aldous Huxley’s FIFTH PHILOSOPHER’S SONG | Sara Teasdale’s “THERE WILL COME SOFT RAINS” | Edith Södergran’s ON FOOT I HAD TO… | Robert Graves’s WELSH INCIDENT | Nancy Cunard’s ZEPPELINS | D.H. Lawrence’s WELLSIAN FUTURES | & many more.