Letter to a Lady in Blue

BLUE MONDAY
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LETTER TO A LADY IN BLUE

Dear Ada, Countess of Lovelace,

I'm writing to let you know

That you are still remembered from 

Two hundred years ago.

How you must have suffered,

Being so misunderstood,

In an era when females were asked to be

Subservient and 'good'!

You must have had a splendid brain;

You were really an inventor,

But barred from university...

You were not allowed to enter.

A woman studying mathematics!

How absolutely mad!

All of which makes your history

Unbelievably sad.

You were fascinated by Babbage

And his 'analytical machine',

The likes of which the people

Had never, never seen.

The 'machine' was the first computer!

It was Babbage's design,

And you, young Ada Lovelace,

Thought it extremely fine.

You wrote notes on the analytical machine

And algorithms too,

Explaining how the engine worked

And the things that it could do.

A Computer Programmer, you were,

And the very, very first!

You must have been so excited

That you felt that you could burst!

You looked into the future

And imagined so much more!

You felt the analytical machine

Could do more than just keep score!

Babbage called you Enchantress of Numbers;

A name that suited you;

If only you were alive today,

How much more work would you do!

But you died, unsung, at thirty-six,

And no-one recalled your name.

But I am writing to tell you

That you have achieved your fame.

For whenever computer history

Is mentioned nowadays

Ada Lovelace is mentioned too

And her name is heaped with praise.

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A Simple Alphabet
MANGO

I once found a magical mango
That knew how to dance a fandango.
I said to him 'Speed
Is what I really need!
Are you going as fast as you can go?'
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