THE DREAMER
By:
March 10, 2025
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.
Like vast nebulæ spinning into space
Scintillant worlds of light, his fine spun
dreams
Are nebulæ of thought; no failure seems
To daunt him nor despair; but calm the
face
He shows the world; if once he wept, no
trace
Of tears appears; but still about him
gleams
With loftiness of soul, a light that streams
Across our meaner paths and sordid place;
Like one who walks in mist or dusk is
blurred,
He fares among mankind with lofty brow,
And half of what he dreams is true and
wise,
Tho’ indistinct and dim, like music heard
In sleep; but seldom does our faith allow
The wisdom of his clearer, subtler eyes.
— Published in Colored American Magazine, April 1905
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.