The painted woman pivots on display,
Or else the man swings out, but never together;
The clock psychology of the house of weather
Strikes beyond its delicacy a dismay.
Two empty arches pantomime a barrier;
From lover’s arms the lever’s arm will carry her;
The bowstring twists: How dry is it? How humid?
By Mercury out of Demeter — hygrometer Cupid.
In the house of weather, the rain is irrelevant;
Flooring doesn’t matter; walls can be ignored;
Inside and out, the spectrum is absorbed,
And every room inherent in the celebrant.
Weather House – A toy hygroscope in the form of a small house with figures of a man and woman standing in open doorways; the man comes out of his doorway in wet weather, and the woman out of hers in dry weather.
…the lever’s arm will carry her;
The bowstring twists: How dry is it? How humid?
The male and female figures ride on a balance bar which is suspended by a string of twisted fiber, catgut, or hair. Depending on the humidity in the surrounding air, the string slightly shrinks or lengthens, and this change in tension swings one figure or the other out of the house.
By Mercury out of Demeter – A play on the formula used in horse‑breeding to indicate parentage: By (the male’s name) out of (the female’s name). As many weather houses include a small thermometer, this is also a play on the thermometer element, mercury (not capitalized), and Mercury, the Roman god of messages. Demeter was the Greek goddess of agriculture.
Hygrometer – (pronounced hi-GRA-meter) A device that measures the humidity of the atmosphere; not quite the same thing as a hygroscope that shows changes in humidity; not to be confused with hydrometer (hi‑DRA‑meter) that measures the water content of liquids.
An outdoor bronze sculpture of a weather house by artist Bonifatius Stirnberg, in Bad Sassendorf, Germany.