Sonnet - To Science by Edgar Allan Poe

<< prev. poem	Poems by Edgar Allan Poe: 40 / 74	next poem >>

Sonnet - To Science

Science! True daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? Or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

Edgar Allan Poe

Read poems about / on: daughter, car, star, summer, tree, green, dream, time, heart, sonnet, sky

User Rating:

8.0 /10
(10 votes)

E-mail this poem to e friend

• Send this poem as eCard

• Add this poem to MyPoemList

• Print friendly version

Comments about this poem (Sonnet - To Science by Edgar Allan Poe)

more comments >>

Click here to write your comments about this poem (Sonnet - To Science by Edgar Allan Poe)

Rachel S (3/2/2008 5:48:00 PM)
I see where you're comming from. I'm a true science lover myself, but it think that Poe may just be saying that there is beauty in not knowing. That there is beauty in imagining and creating your own realities. He's not necessarily condemning science, he's just saying that there is beauty in the world outside of the difinitive reality of how exactly things work.

Lucianne Fasolo (9/30/2007 6:57:00 PM)
I agree with Stephen. But that was only how Romantics saw Science: as something that explained too much when explanations and definitions were unnecessary and even undesirable. In spite of that I love this poem.

Read all 5 comments >>