The Tangled Bank
Contemplate a tangled bank
Clothed with many kinds of plant
Insects and birds flitting about
Worms crawling through the damp
Reflect that these elaborate
And differently constructed forms
Have been produced by such a simple set
Of ever acting norms
Growth, reproduction and inheritance
Variation to transmit
Natural selection then leading to
Extinction of the less fit
From the war of nature
From famine and from death
Follow the most exalted species
To have ever drawn a breath
There is grandeur in this view of life
And its powers not yet gone
Having been originally breathed
Into a few forms or just one
From as simple a beginning
As could ever be resolved
Endless forms most beautiful
Are continuously evolved.
So lovely: To inspire his daughter to learn about science, biologist-dad Michael Eisen renders the last paragraph of Darwin’s Origin of Species in verse – best thing since that vintage scientific paper published as a 38-stanza poem.
Complement with scientists’ answers to kids’ most pressing existential questions.
