A Grain of Sand

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My reading of "A Grain of Sand," by Robert W. Service (1874-1958). You can find the text of the poem here:



Robert Service was not the first poet to express the idea that larger mysteries might be unlocked in a grain of sand, if we had the eyes to see and the brain to comprehend. Here is what William Blake (1757-1827) had to say about it in "Auguries Of Innocence:"

"To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour."

It's a reductionist sentiment, the same sentiment that underlies much of science: if you can understand a thing from what it is made of, and in turn understand what *that* is made of, and so on, you can grasp the fundamental truths of the universe. Reductionism leads us from whirling galaxies all the way down to the tiny scales of quantum physics.

The space photographs were all created with the Hubble Space Telescope and are in the public domain, courtesy of NASA.

The first beach photograph is the work of Francois Schnell, "Dune and Blue Sky," in the public domain. The second beach photograph is the work of kendiala, "Dune," licensed under the Creative Commons. The final beach photograph is by zenmasterlauren, "Child on the Beach," in the public domain. You can find these photographs by searching on each artist's name at

Music is by Mooma, "Entropy," from his album "Herd Forming," licensed under the Creative Commons and available from

I don't normally present poetry this short, but I was learning some new software. Consider this video the result of testing.

Enjoy.

Channel: Entertainment
Uploaded: April 10, 2007 at 11:04 pm
Author: Urgelt

Length: 00:03:18
Rating: 4.63
Views: 31758

Tags: Robert Service poetry poem sand beach Hubble Telescope astronomy

Video Comments:
killerrodan (November 2, 2008 at 9:07 pm)
This is great.Space has no limits.
dinesho404 (October 24, 2008 at 4:25 pm)
Teacher Lovin' the S.A way..just the way u like it!

DATEHERWOW._COM
btbking (October 6, 2008 at 5:42 pm)
It's easy to say things like 500.000 million stars and 14 billion light years, but visualizing our galaxy is complex enough, we can't even start to imagine the vastness of our local galactic community, much less the whole universe.

I've grown a passion for Astronomy since my teen years, we're still in diapers when speaking about Astronomy.
Quite primitive to say the least.
Urgelt (October 6, 2008 at 11:17 pm)
We have the same visualization problem at very small scales.

During my lifetime, our ability to peer further and into more detail into the universe has improved considerably. But you're still right, our knowledge remains superficial.

That just makes astronomy more interesting, I think. Whenever we peel back a layer of the vast unknown, we're surprised by what we find.
Belle19700 (July 30, 2008 at 6:19 am)
I am a grain of sand, but I have feelings, passions, opinions, love, and outrage bigger than the universe. I matter. We matter. We do not live in vain.
Urgelt (July 30, 2008 at 10:32 am)
I agree.

Unfortunately, our species often acts as though its individual members do not matter at all.

I harbor a suspicion that if we do not matter to ourselves, nothing else in the universe would be likely to care, either.
11moonelf (July 25, 2008 at 1:33 am)
really wonderful-the tone of your voice is perfect for the reading. and the sound level of the music is balanced nicely, that takes skill! thank you for sharing this video.
Yeh67 (March 24, 2008 at 9:33 pm)
That was awsome Urgelt. It was so realixing I nearly fell asleep.

Well done!
Urgelt (March 21, 2008 at 7:50 am)
NASA.

Space (dot) com has a nice selection; I'd recommend you start there. NASA itself has far more photos and is a harder to navigate.

The good news is, these photographs are all available at much higher resolution than you can see in a YouTube video. Gorgeous.
rainbowdoom (March 21, 2008 at 5:33 am)
I really like this mix of music and poetry! I think they accompany each other so well. I actually think it's the best I've heard!
I'd be so thrilled if this was somehow turned into an mp3 to put into my mp3 player!

I really think this is so wonderful and especially relaxing with the background music!
:)