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Section II
Selected Stanzas
WHENAS the skilful hand dissects | |
| The slumbering pupa of the worm, | |
| The keen and cunning eye detects | |
| The winged imago’s embryo form: | |
| Look but attentively beneath | 5 |
| Integument and covering,— | |
| Thou’lt see, close folded in their sheath, | |
| The rudiments of foot and wing. | |
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| The soul of man, laid bare to view, | |
| Supplies like singular augury; | 10 |
| Therein we find the guiding clue | |
| To all he’s fore-ordained to be: | |
| It needs no cunning eye therein | |
| To read presumptively his fate, | |
| Some forecast of his future win, | 15 |
| His goal and scope anticipate. | |
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| Not surer does the nascent fin | |
| Or wing some special use foretell; | |
| The embryo members, shut within | |
| The safe enclosure of the shell, | 20 |
| Predict the noble life and free | |
| The full-developed bird awaits, | |
| The blissful, rapturous ecstacy | |
| It yet shall share in with its mates. | |
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| Each organ immature shows forth | 25 |
| Its true connatural element, | |
| Whether of ocean, air, or earth, | |
| Towards which, its vesicle but rent, | |
| Forthwith precipitate it speeds, | |
| Nor will by ought be turned aside, | 30 |
| For thence alone the pressing needs | |
| Wherewith it wakes can be supplied. | |
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