SpokenVerse | "The Vision of Sin, part IV" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (poetry reading) @SpokenVerse | Uploaded October 2012 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
This may seem like an old man's poem but it was first published in 1842 - when Tennyson was 32.
The line was originally: "Every minute dies a man, Every minute one is born;" but he changed it to "every moment...&c" after receiving a letter from Charles Babbage, the mathematician who is sometimes credited with coming up with the idea of computers or, at least, machines that could calculate.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage
In his letter Babbage said, "I need hardly point out to you that this calculation would tend to keep the sum total of the world's population in a state of perpetual equipoise, whereas it is a well-known fact that the said sum total is constantly on the increase. I would therefore take the liberty of suggesting that in the next edition of your excellent poem the erroneous calculation to which I refer should be corrected as follows: "Every minute dies a man, And one and a sixteenth is born." I may add that the exact figures are 1.067, but something must, of course, be conceded to the laws of metre."
Now, let us take the population of the earth in 1842 to be about 1 billion, which is about right - and let us assume that half were men. There is also the innate assumption that men who are born survive to maturity, which is much more likely now than it was then.
If the male population were increasing at a sixteenth of a man per minute then in the 170 years since then, which is 170 x 365 x 24 x 60 minutes = 89 million minutes, at a 0.067 of a man per minute it would have increased by 6 million men - but that's not true. 3 billion men more would be closer to the truth, giving the current world population of about about 3.5 billion men.
If you haven't died of boredom yet, stay with me while I calculate a more accurate rate of replenishment with the benefit of hindsight - in homage to Charles Babbage. It's only fair to increase the number of men being born proportionate to those that are currently existing - like compound interest. My suggested amendment is "Every minute men die but the same number plus ELEVEN more are born".
It is calculated thus: (The number of men alive now) =(The number of men who existed then) x ((the rate of increase) ^ ( the number of minutes that have elapsed since))
^ means raised to the power.
500,000,000 x ((500,000,011/500,000,000)^89,000,000) = 3,543,000,000 men
The global death rate would then have been about 30 men per minute, calculating from about 30 deaths per annum per 1000 men in a world population of 500,000,000 men. Actually ((500,000,000/1000 x 30)/(365 x 24 x 60)) = 28.5 deaths per minute. So the redefined "moment" would be 2 seconds, if we take the poem literally. There have been 2.67 billion "moments" since then and in that case the line becomes "Every "moment" dies a man, and ONE AND A QUARTER men are born."
500,000,000 x ((500,000,000.25/500,000,000)^2,670,000,000) = 3,790,000,000 men
I hope that was fun for you, too. It's all nonsense, of course.
There's a stanza Tennyson supposedly deleted from In Memoriam;
"The sun ever rises in the East
And ever sets upon the West
This much we know, at least,
And hope and pray 'tis for the best."
The paintings are:
Stable Scene by George Morland
The Drinkers by Honore Daumier
'Wrinkled ostler, grim and thin!
Here is custom come your way;
Take my brute, and lead him in
Stuff his ribs with mouldy hay.
'Bitter barmaid, waning fast!
See that sheets are on my bed;
What! the flower of life is past:
It is long before you wed.
'Slip-shod waiter, lank and sour,
At the Dragon on the heath!
Let us have a quiet hour,
Let us hob-and-nob with Death.
'I am old, but let me drink;
Bring me spices, bring me wine;
I remember, when I think,
That my youth was half divine.
'Wine is good for shrivell'd lips,
When a blanket wraps the day,
When the rotten woodland drips,
And the leaf is stamp'd in clay.
'Sit thee down, and have no shame,
Cheek by jowl, and knee by knee:
What care I for any name?
What for order or degree?
'Let me screw thee up a peg:
Let me loose thy tongue with wine:
Callest thou that thing a leg?
Which is thinnest? thine or mine?
'Thou shalt not be saved by works:
Thou hast been a sinner too:
Ruin'd trunks on wither'd forks,
Empty scarecrows, I and you!
'Fill the cup, and fill the can:
Have a rouse before the morn:
Every moment dies a man,
Every moment one is born.
'We are men of ruin'd blood;
Therefore comes it we are wise.
Fish are we that love the mud,
Rising to no fancy-flies.
'Name and fame! to fly sublime
Thro' the courts, the camps, the schools,
Is to be the ball of Time,
Bandied by the hands of fools.
'Friendship!—to be two in one—
Let the canting liar pack! (hypocritical)
Well I know, when I am gone,
How she mouths behind my back.
'Virtue!—to be good and just—
Every heart, when sifted well,
Is a clot of warmer dust,
Mix'd with cunning sparks of hell.
etc... out of space
This may seem like an old man's poem but it was first published in 1842 - when Tennyson was 32.
The line was originally: "Every minute dies a man, Every minute one is born;" but he changed it to "every moment...&c" after receiving a letter from Charles Babbage, the mathematician who is sometimes credited with coming up with the idea of computers or, at least, machines that could calculate.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage
In his letter Babbage said, "I need hardly point out to you that this calculation would tend to keep the sum total of the world's population in a state of perpetual equipoise, whereas it is a well-known fact that the said sum total is constantly on the increase. I would therefore take the liberty of suggesting that in the next edition of your excellent poem the erroneous calculation to which I refer should be corrected as follows: "Every minute dies a man, And one and a sixteenth is born." I may add that the exact figures are 1.067, but something must, of course, be conceded to the laws of metre."
Now, let us take the population of the earth in 1842 to be about 1 billion, which is about right - and let us assume that half were men. There is also the innate assumption that men who are born survive to maturity, which is much more likely now than it was then.
If the male population were increasing at a sixteenth of a man per minute then in the 170 years since then, which is 170 x 365 x 24 x 60 minutes = 89 million minutes, at a 0.067 of a man per minute it would have increased by 6 million men - but that's not true. 3 billion men more would be closer to the truth, giving the current world population of about about 3.5 billion men.
If you haven't died of boredom yet, stay with me while I calculate a more accurate rate of replenishment with the benefit of hindsight - in homage to Charles Babbage. It's only fair to increase the number of men being born proportionate to those that are currently existing - like compound interest. My suggested amendment is "Every minute men die but the same number plus ELEVEN more are born".
It is calculated thus: (The number of men alive now) =(The number of men who existed then) x ((the rate of increase) ^ ( the number of minutes that have elapsed since))
^ means raised to the power.
500,000,000 x ((500,000,011/500,000,000)^89,000,000) = 3,543,000,000 men
The global death rate would then have been about 30 men per minute, calculating from about 30 deaths per annum per 1000 men in a world population of 500,000,000 men. Actually ((500,000,000/1000 x 30)/(365 x 24 x 60)) = 28.5 deaths per minute. So the redefined "moment" would be 2 seconds, if we take the poem literally. There have been 2.67 billion "moments" since then and in that case the line becomes "Every "moment" dies a man, and ONE AND A QUARTER men are born."
500,000,000 x ((500,000,000.25/500,000,000)^2,670,000,000) = 3,790,000,000 men
I hope that was fun for you, too. It's all nonsense, of course.
There's a stanza Tennyson supposedly deleted from In Memoriam;
"The sun ever rises in the East
And ever sets upon the West
This much we know, at least,
And hope and pray 'tis for the best."
The paintings are:
Stable Scene by George Morland
The Drinkers by Honore Daumier
'Wrinkled ostler, grim and thin!
Here is custom come your way;
Take my brute, and lead him in
Stuff his ribs with mouldy hay.
'Bitter barmaid, waning fast!
See that sheets are on my bed;
What! the flower of life is past:
It is long before you wed.
'Slip-shod waiter, lank and sour,
At the Dragon on the heath!
Let us have a quiet hour,
Let us hob-and-nob with Death.
'I am old, but let me drink;
Bring me spices, bring me wine;
I remember, when I think,
That my youth was half divine.
'Wine is good for shrivell'd lips,
When a blanket wraps the day,
When the rotten woodland drips,
And the leaf is stamp'd in clay.
'Sit thee down, and have no shame,
Cheek by jowl, and knee by knee:
What care I for any name?
What for order or degree?
'Let me screw thee up a peg:
Let me loose thy tongue with wine:
Callest thou that thing a leg?
Which is thinnest? thine or mine?
'Thou shalt not be saved by works:
Thou hast been a sinner too:
Ruin'd trunks on wither'd forks,
Empty scarecrows, I and you!
'Fill the cup, and fill the can:
Have a rouse before the morn:
Every moment dies a man,
Every moment one is born.
'We are men of ruin'd blood;
Therefore comes it we are wise.
Fish are we that love the mud,
Rising to no fancy-flies.
'Name and fame! to fly sublime
Thro' the courts, the camps, the schools,
Is to be the ball of Time,
Bandied by the hands of fools.
'Friendship!—to be two in one—
Let the canting liar pack! (hypocritical)
Well I know, when I am gone,
How she mouths behind my back.
'Virtue!—to be good and just—
Every heart, when sifted well,
Is a clot of warmer dust,
Mix'd with cunning sparks of hell.
etc... out of space
