THE SUPER-MAN
By:
October 8, 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.
What is this thing they call the Super-man?
Come, Friend, and let us walk beneath the
stars;
Lift up your eyes, these circling wonders
scan —
See, yonder burns the fiery planet Mars!
Across the Zenith runs the Milky Way,
Beneath the pole-star swings the faithful
Seven;
Look well, my Friend, consider it and say
Who is this Super-worm that mocks at
Heaven?
One Nietzche was a fly of German birth,
’Twas he who in his mighty moment said:
“I am the highest product of the earth,
The Super-man has come, the Gods are
dead!”
Poor gods! I saw you as the lightning fall
From heaven to the abyss of worn-out
things!
I saw men mount Olympus, giants tall
In mental stature, scientific kings!
They flung their fiery thunder-bolts afar,
They launched their swift Armadas on the
skies,
They shook the world with Armageddon
war,
The Poor were slaughter’d like a swarm of
flies!
Throughout the world the murderous
message sped:
“The Fittest only shall on earth survive!”
The meek before their cruel engines fled,
Till none but Super-men remained alive.
There was an ominous lull for many days;
The sun and stars, indifferent as of yore,
Looked down upon the scene with tranquil
gaze,
Though every land was stained with human
gore.
Then suddenly there flashed the globe
around
The herald of a final test of power:
And soon upon the air the thunders sound,
While to the earth there fell a crimson
shower!
In the nocturnal shadow of our sphere
There walked a man alone beside the Sea;
Wild were his eyes, as with a nameless fear:
“Alone!” he cried, “there’s none now left but
me!
“I am the relict of a giant race;
The Fittest, the imperial Super-man!”
He wiped the sweat and gore from off his
face,
And through his matted hair his fingers
ran.
He raised his eyes unto the starry deep,
He looked across the dark and silent wave;
All was encompassed in a lethal sleep,
And the whole planet was a living grave!
From The Beckoning Skyline, and other poems (1920). Here, the original pub. date is given as 1916 (in The Literary Monthly).
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.