If you can hold the laws of mass and motion
While all around you logic falls to fray,
If you can sail the deep and restless ocean
And find the stars to guide a steady way;
If you can write the truth for tens of thousands
With ink of candor, stripped of all conceit,
And walk with kings in high and gilded housings,
Yet keep the common dust upon your feet;
If you can wait for data to be proven
Before you cast the die or sign the page,
And see the threads of history being woven
With wisdom gained from every passing age;
If you can view the “Great Transition” nearing
Not as a void, but as a final quest,
And find the peace to do your own last steering
Until the helm is granted final rest;
If you can give your frame to those who follow
To map the cells and learn the hidden part,
Leaving no truth to ring out thin or hollow
Within the chambers of a physicist’s heart;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of depth and grit,
Yours is the world and everything that’s in it,
And—more—you’ve made a masterpiece of it.
Many thanks to our correspondent, John McCormick.
