A Sentimental Education

Prismatic crystals, red unshrouded coals
Glowing and tumbling in the grate,
An atlas where the file of Andes snaked
Through pocket states in tan and blue and green,
The click of dense equations coming out
As naked logic ended with a bow
And proved his faith—a world was built on these:

The Western Indies touched with rum and gold
Crisply inscribed upon a printer's sea,
The Carolinas rocked by Edward Teach,
Statistics, batting averages and graphs
That soared like Himalayas on a page
Meshed with green lines—jagged precision there!—
And then that most elaborate wonderland,
The periodic table on a chart
Where every element observed his place,
His weight, his quality; those ninety-two
Were allegorical protagonists;
Zinc, argon, sulphur, calcium and gold
Were knights for whom the week itself would ride;
Flowers of wild colour in the Bunsen flame,
The blank facility of qu'est-ce que c'est,
Mark Twain, Keith Miller, Alexander Pope,
Dichromate crystals like unshrouded coals,
Gleaming and growing in the light
Week after week ….