Our Dear Sun
They used to call you Aten
You golden yellow sphere
You reign supreme above our heads
Your power we must fear.
Your distance from our little earth
Is said to be just right
Not too distant or to near
For just enough heat and light.
You control the rate of flow
Of surface energy
Wind and clouds and rain and snow
And currents out at sea.
You also exert your control
On the way we work and play
From icy roads to beachfront camps
Or the sailboat in the bay.
Some of us are overcome
By the power of your rays
Exposed cells are baked and burnt
On those lovely sunny days.
My dear majestic Aten...
We'll always need your energy
To sustain our biosphere
So rise up! EVERY MORNING, star!
We're so glad you're still up there.
--by Peter Elias
CARBON CONNECTION
Carbon comes in many forms
Hard as diamond, soft as soot
Coal or graphite when we write
And fancy fullerine to boot.
Carbon chains are straight or branched
Or closed to form a ring
Organic compounds these are called
Parts for life they bring.
Coal and oil and fuel gas
Once mined they have much worth
These reservoirs of energy
Were once alive on earth.
When carbon joins with oxygen
It's either two or one
The double causes drinks to fizz
The single one? you're gone.
I mean carbon dioxide's fairly good
Most days it is our friend
But carbon monoxide's something else
One miss can mean the end.
--by Peter Elias
To the Moon
"O, thou."
--CLAUD HALCRO.
BLESS thy bright face! though often blessed before
By raving maniac and by pensive fool;
One would say something more-- but who as yet,
When looking at thee in the deep blue sky,
Could tell the poorest thought that struck his heart?
Yet all have tried, and all have tried in vain.
At thee, poor planet, is the first attempt
That the young rhymster ventures. And the sigh
The boyish lover heaves, is at the Moon.
Bards, who -- ere Milton sung or Shakspeare played
The dirge of sorrow, or the song of love,
Bards, who had higher soared than Fesole,
Knew better of the Moon. 'T was there they found
Vain thoughts, lost hopes, and fancy's happy dreams,
And all sweet sounds, such as have fled afar
From waking discords, and from daylight jars.
There Ariosto puts the widow's weeds
When she, new wedded, smiles abroad again,
And there the sad maid's innocence -- 't is there
That broken vows and empty promises,
All good intentions, with no answering deed
To anchor them on the substantial earth,
Are shrewdly packed. -- And could he think that thou,
So bright, so pure of aspect, so serene,
Art the mere storehouse of our faults and crimes?
I'd rather think as puling rhymsters think,
O; love-sick maidens fancy -- Yea, prefer
The dairy notion that thou art but cheese,
Green cheese --than thus misdoubt thy honest face.
Symphony of science
