From ‘Seven Women Scientists’

Caroline Herschel

‘Index to Flamsteed’s Observations of the Fixed Stars’, 1798

Caroline Herschel turns her telescope
on her first comet, its swan’s neck of snow

dipping into the dark water of space.
The curved tine of its tail trailing, flickering

signalling for a likeness of light
among the nebulae and unbroken night

where two swans of ice and stone might sweep
the perihelion in parallel parabolas

of double stars and orbiting pairs.
Caroline steadies her focus. The polished lens

of her Newtonian reflector
light-gathers the flight of every star.

The swans have flown, brother and sister.

They named the first comet after her.

Ada Lovelace

‘Notes A-G on the Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage’, 1843

A.     She walks through mathematics like light.
         ‘We will terminate these Notes,’ Lovelace writes,

B.     ‘by following up in detail the steps
         through which the engine could compute

C.     the Numbers of Bernoulli.’ Ada Lovelace
         tracks them through the tables of figures,

D.     her algorithm moving through its metres
         precisely as a pianist playing keys.

E.     ‘The engine,’ she says to Babbage, ‘weaves
         algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard

F.     loom weaves flowers and leaves.’
         The Enchantress of Number, her friend calls her.

G.     And all that’s best of dark and bright
         met in the aspect of her mind.