Chemist To His Love

The Poem “Chemist To His Love” is a poem written by someone who loves chemistry and is deeply in love with someone. This is a light-hearted poem written anonymously just to express love in the language of Chemistry. The poet has used recognized chemical reactions to show the passionate love between the chemist and his beloved.

Sidenote: You can use these poetic lines to learn reactions in chemistry. Or you can also make your poems containing chemical reactions. It might help you to remember it.

The poet addresses her beloved and says that they both love each other. The metaphorical flame representing the passionate love that they have does not exist between any other two beings. He compares both of them with Potassium and oxygen. Potassium instantly catches fire in the presence of oxygen, analogous to the fiery, passionate relationship between the chemist and Mary.

K + O2 = K2O + Heat

He presents a hypothetical scenario saying if he were a living acid and she an alkali, they both might come together to form a salt — one homogenous crystal.

Acid + Base = Salt + Water

If she were a Carbon and he were hydrogen, together they both would have formed ethylene ( old name: Ofelient gas ), or common coal or Naphthalene.

[ Carbon and Hydrogen can make many more compounds ]

C + H = C2H2

He continues taking such similes from chemistry and says that if he were phosphorus, and she was Lime, then they would have formed phosphoruet (a compound of Phosphorus with Hydrogen)

The poet then said to his beloved that if he would be Sulphuric acid, and in case if she were soda, then together they would be Glaubler’s salt, Na2SO4. If she were Magnesia, then they would form Epsom, MgSO4.

H2SO4 + NaOH = Na2SO4

H2SO4 + Mg = MgSO4

He said that if she were Potassia, KOH, and he aqua fortis, HNO3 (Nitric acid), then their happy union would form Saltpetre (another name of Nitrate of Potash)

KOH + HNO3 = KNO3

In the ending lines poet talks about living together till death and combining with each other souls for eternity by using the word ‘Amalgamated’, which literally means combining. In his poem, he compared the combining of various chemical compounds with him and his beloved. In the end, he concludes the poem by saying that her name is Briggs and his name is Johnson. So they both should agree to become “Johnsonnate of Briggs”, just like chemical compounds.

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