Read "Newdigate Poem" by Hilaire Belloc online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Hail, Happy Muse, and touch the tuneful string!
The benefits conferred by Science[1] I sing.
Under the kind Examiners' direction[2] / I only write about them in connection / With benefits which the Electric Light / Confers on us; especially at night.
These are my theme, of these my song shall rise.
My lofty head shall swell to strike the skies.[3] / And tears of hopeless love bedew the maiden's eyes.
Descend, O Muse, from thy divine abode, / To Osney, on the Seven Bridges Road; / For under Osney's solitary shade / The bulk of the Electric Light is made.
Here are the works; -- from hence the current flows / Which (so the Company's prospectus goes) / Can furnish to Subscribers hour by hour / No less than sixteen thousand candle power,[4] / All at a thousand volts. (It is essential / To keep the current at this high potential / In spite of the considerable expense.) / The Energy developed represents, / Expressed in foot-tons, the united forces / Of fifteen elephants and forty horses.
But shall my scientific detail thus / Clip the dear wings of Buoyant Pegasus?
Shall pure statistics jar upon the ear / That pants for Lyric accents loud and clear?
Shall I describe the complex Dynamo / Or write about its Commutator? No!
To happier fields I lead my wanton pen, / The proper study of mankind is men.
Awake, my Muse! Portray the pleasing sight / That meets us where they make Electric Light.
Behold the Electrician where he stands: / Soot, oil, and verdigris are on his hands; / Large spots of grease defile his dirty clothes, / The while his conversation drips with oaths.
Shall such a being perish in its youth?
Alas! it is indeed the fatal truth.
In that dull brain, beneath that hair unkempt, / Familiarity has bred contempt.
We warn him of the gesture all too late: / Oh, Heartless Jove! Oh, Adamantine Fate!
Some random touch -- a hand's imprudent slip -- / The Terminals -- a flash -- a sound like "Zip! " / A smell of burning fills the started Air -- / The Electrician is no longer there!
But let us turn with true Artistic scorn / From facts funereal and from views forlorn / Of Erebus and Blackest midnight born.[5] / Arouse thee, Muse! and chaunt in accents rich / The interesting processes by which / The Electricity is passed along: / These are my theme: to these I bend my song.
It runs encased in wood or porous brick / Through copper wires two millimetres thick, / And insulated on their dangerous mission / By indiarubber, silk, or composition.