SAN FRANCISCO’S 18th OF APRIL (1906)
By:
April 16, 2024
A (pro- or anti-) science-, mathematics-, technology-, space-, apocalypse-, dehumanization-, disenchantment-, and/or future-oriented poem published during sf’s emergent Radium Age (c. 1900–1935). Research and selection by Joshua Glenn.
… ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars … nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows. — St. Mark, xiii, 7–8.
“O, what an awful, awful dream!” A dream?
O, sleepy head!
Arouse! arouse! electric brain, from this
delusive sleep!
Open your eyes upon a truth that churns
the ocean deep!
That splits asunder even now the mighty
mountain’s bed!
O, sleepy eyes, look and behold yon reeling
mass of steel!
Yon track-laid paves of broken stones now
writhing in their speach
Of mighty forces great and strong that they
are bound to teach!
Ears, ’wake and hear their message, too!
heart, drink the truth you feel!
Hark! what is that? — O, fire! fire! our city is
wrap’d in flames!
The leaping flames whose awful breath
bloweth death so deeply wrought
With scorched sounds of human cries; and,
of mercy beareth naught!
Who stamps Life’s faces with its brand of
crisp — unknown names.
The Unseen Hand! let us believe, in spite of
every cant
About the science that’s proclaimed does
these great shocking deeds;
Life-Words’ great prophecies we see
fulfilling as they read —
All of their deep, mysterious truths we
must in wonder grant.
— “San Francisco’s 18th of April (1906),” in Voices of Solitude (1907). The book’s epigraph: “My motto through this life I choose to be Evolution! The light amid the darkness ’round I see — Evolution! The steady view and mental quiz, A delving for the truth there is, A building up to joy and bliss — Evolution!” See this resource.
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.