ADDRESS TO MY SOUL
By:
August 23, 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.
My soul, be not disturbed
By planetary war;
Remain securely orbed
In this contracted star.
Fear not, pathetic flame;
Your sustenance is doubt.
Glassed in translucent dream
They cannot snuff you out.
Wear water, or a mask
Of unapparent cloud;
Be brave and never ask
A more defunctive shroud.
The universal points
Are shrunk into a flower;
Between its delicate joints
Chaos keeps no power.
The pure integral form,
Austere and silver-dark,
Is balanced on the storm
In its predestined arc.
Small as a sphere of rain
It slides along the groove
Whose path is furrowed plain
Among the suns that move.
The shapes of April buds
Outlive the phantom year:
Upon the void at odds
The dewdrop falls severe.
Five-petalled flame, be cold:
Be firm, dissolving star:
Accept the stricter mould
That makes you singular.
— Appears in the May 1928 issue of Poetry.
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.