DUST
By:
March 25, 2025
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.
Dust,
Through which
Proud blood
Once flowed.
Dust,
Where a civilization
Flourished.
Dust,
The Valley of the Nile,
Dust,
You proud ones, proud of the skill
With which you play this game —
Civilization;
Do not forget that it is a very old game.
Men used to play it on the banks
Of the Tigris and the Euphrates
When the world was a wilderness.
There is a circle around China
Where once a wall stood.
Carthage is a heap of ashes.
And Rome knew the pomp and glory
You know now.
The Coliseum tells a story
The Woolworth Building may repeat.
Dust,
Pharaohs and their armies sleep there.
Dust,
Shall it stir again?
Will Pharaohs rise and rule
And their armies march once more?
Civilization continually shifts
Upon the places of the earth.
— 1927. From Caroling Dusk (1927), edited by Countee Cullen.
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.