Maxwell's Final Days                     

James Clerk Maxwell's electromagnetic equations have been a great contribution to the realm of science. James' interest in the world around him never waned from his days as a small child in Glenlair. He never strayed from his mother's advice to "look through nature to nature's God." He lay on his deathbed in 1879, in Cambridge; dying of an abdominal cancer as his mother had when he was young. He was fifty years old; his friend Colin Mackenzie, his wife, and others sat with him. In the final few minutes of his life, Maxwell was in great pain. "God help me! God help my wife!" he said, and then asked Mr. Mackenzie to lift him up. In a moment he took his last few breaths, and his life on earth ended.

Thanks to Representative Poetry Online and the State of Louisiana.

   A Student's Evening Hymn (Final two verses)

Teach me so thy works to read
That my faith, new strength accruing,
May from world to world proceed,
Wisdom's fruitful search pursuing;
Till, thy truth my mind imbuing,
I proclaim the Eternal Creed,
Oft the glorious theme renewing
God our Lord is God indeed.

Give me love aright to trace
Thine to everything created,
Preaching to a ransomed race
By Thy mercy renovated,
Till with all thy fulness sated
I behold thee face to face
And with Ardour unabated
Sing the glories of thy grace.

Poem by James Clerk Maxwell