How to Periodically Dissect and (Dis)solve a Chemystery Poem
Back in high school we were taught a poem to help us remember the first 20 elements of the periodic table. I have been trying to find it on the net. I always wondered if there was a less nonsensical version of it. As far as I can remember, it went like this:
"Her Highness Lady Barten Boon, came near old Florence Nightingale statue, making Alice sit poised, suddenly Charles Armstrong passed casually"
If you remember Chemistry 101, it should be obvious to you that Her stands for Hydrogen, Highness stands for Helium, Lady stands for Lithium and so on...
Apparently, the poet took the "periodic" table quite literally (or should I say literaryly :D) .
Alice, is most definitely Alice from Alice in Wonderland, who was about 10 years old in 1865 when the book was published. (Interestingly the book too is said to be the surreal work of "literary nonsense", but we won't credit Lewis Caroll for this absurd poem)
I don't know who Lady Barten Boon is, but it seems like she enjoyed a regal status and commanded a lot of respect (at least enough to make Alice sit poised).
Florence Nightingale is most definitely the famous "Lady with the Lamp", born in 1820 and alive all through the 1800s, until 1910. I doubt that her statue was erected when she was still alive. That being the case, Alice was at least 45 years old when she was found sitting by Florence's statue. The middle-aged Alice was probably not like the adventurous young-Alice who fell down the rabbit-hole. With age, I suspect one gets wiser and less imaginative. ;-)
Charles Armstrong (I gather from wikipedia) was an American physician in the US Public Health Service. He was born in 1886 and lived until the mid 1900s (I was thrilled to learn that he lived in Bethesda, MD... so close to home). Could he have visited England for a bit and walked past Lady Boon and Alice in front of Florence's Statue? Highly unlikely, but again not impossible. Alice is at least 30 years older than Charles and very famous way before he walked past her. I would have thought he'd stop and greet her, but, he was either ignorant or vain, and that's not saying much about him. Come to think of it, he must have been a very young lad, after all, he was only 15 when Alice was 45. On the other hand, Lady Barten Boon has no excuse. She is most certainly ignorant AND vain. If you ask me, she should have been the one sitting poised. In fact, I think she should have been lowering her torso and bowing all the way down to do a reverential salutation to Alice.
And the poet was clearly out of his mind :-)
In trying to find the poem, I bumped into a website with clever poems for each element in the table. They are all worth reading, and some of them are actually enlightening. I wont say more. Read it if you like.
My search continues.
