“BUT THE MAN NOT YET…”
By:
July 15, 2026
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.
But the man not yet is satisfied,
And into the skies, the telescope
He lifts, and measures the space
between
The planets and stars that race along
In a ceaseless flight the heaven lands.
And he knoweth why Orion’s sword
Is in nebulae casing sheathed,
But thinks the dipper hangs in the skies
That drink may the weary, thirsty stars.
But soon the secret he knoweth well,
Just why the stars are together grouped.
And how each one, in its fiery glow,
Doth trail with its flames the ether
through.
He catches sound and holdeth it fast,
And familiar he is with science,
And knoweth that light by seconds leap
About the fifth of a million miles
Yet soon he may o’er the empty space
Which is between this earth and the
stars,
Throw forth a bridge and on rapid trains,
Carry on an extensive trade —
And then will the merry cycler have
A race along the etherial blue,
So aging sweetly o’er the airy way,
Closing the record of the seventh day.
But forth come angels and cut in twain
Th’ invisible band that binds the stars,
And they, let loose, dart off into space,
Pell-mell in their flight, and quicken
speed.
And then what spectacle to behold
The stars that in tangled mazes fly!
While troop in their wake, ten million
souls,
Seeking their bodies to find and catch.
Then suddenly sounds the trump of God,
And worlds collide and explode and
burn;
And doth our Lord, in a whirling flame,
Snatch up the righteous into his arms
And then doth He to the wicked cry,
“All of ye cursed from me depart.”
And upon a throne of wickedness,
Doth quick’ the King of darkness reign,
While aged time with the seventh seal
Shuts up the record of the “last” day.
— Excerpted from “A Dream of Creation” (Jessamine Poems, 1900). This collection was self-published after the author was asked to contribute to the department of Negro literature at the Paris Exposition Universelle.
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.