PLACE - A small alcove with dark curtains.
The class consists of one member.
SUBJECT - Thomson's Mirror Galvanometer.
The lamp-light falls on blackened walls,
And streams through narrow perforations,
The long beam trails o'er pasteboard scales,
With slow-decaying oscillations.
Flow, current, flow, set the quick light-spot flying,
Flow, current,answer light-spot, flashing, quivering, dying,
O look! how queer! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, sharper growing
The gliding fire! with central wire,
The fine degrees distinctly showing.
Swing magnet, swing, advancing and receiving,
Swing magnet! Answer dearest, What's your final reading?
O love! you fail to read the scale
Correct to tenths of a division.
To mirror heaven those eyes were given,
And not for methods of precision.
Break contact, break, set the free light-spot flying;
Break contact, rest thee, magnet, swinging, creeping, dying.