They try to persuade me, my dear little sprite,
That you're not a true daughter of ether and light,
Nor have any concern with those fanciful forms
That dance upon rainbows and ride upon storms;
That, in short, you're a woman; your lip and your eye
As mortal as ever drew gods from the sky.
But I will not believe them--no, Science, to you
I have long bid a last and a careless adieu;
Still flying from Nature to study her laws,
And dulling delight in exploring its cause,
You forget how superior, for mortals below,
Is the fiction they dream to the truth that they know.

Thomas Moore, To the Invisible Girl
Written in 1850

Posted 2 September 1997

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