Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car,
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
The gentle Naiad from her fountain flood?
Here, Poe uses a powerful image: Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt and major icon in the arts since the Renaissance, being “dragged … from her car.” Her iconic depiction in the arts is deromanticized by the unrelenting “dull realities” that, in this poem, characterize science and scientific discovery. 

Sonnet—To Science