| |
| FRIENDS and associates! lend a patient ear, | |
| Suspend intestine broils and reason hear. | |
| Ye followers of —— your wrath forbear— | |
| Ye sons of ——— your invectives spare; | |
| The fierce dissension your high minds pursue | 5 |
| Is sport for others—ruinous to you. | |
| |
| Surely some fatal influenza reigns, | |
| Some epidemic rabies turns your brains; | |
| Is this a time for brethren to engage | |
| In public contest and in party rage? | 10 |
| Fell discord triumphs in your doubtful strife, | |
| And, smiling, whets her anatomic knife; | |
| Prepared to cut our precious limbs away | |
| And leave the bleeding body to decay. | |
| |
| Seek ye for foes? alas, my friends, look round, | 15 |
| In every street, see numerous foes abound! | |
| Methinks I hear them cry, in varied tones, | |
| “Give us our father’s—brother’s—sister’s bones.” | |
| Methinks I see a mob of sailors rise— | |
| “Revenge!—revenge!” they cry, and damn their eyes— | 20 |
| “Revenge for comrade Jack, whose flesh they say, | |
| You minced to morsels and then threw away.” | |
| Methinks I see a black infernal train— | |
| The genuine offspring of accursed Cain— | |
| Fiercely on you their angry looks are bent, | 25 |
| They grin and gibber dangerous discontent, | |
| And seem to say—“Is there not meat enough? | |
| Ah! massa cannibal, why eat poor Cuff?” | |
| Even hostile watchmen stand in strong array, | |
| And o’er our heads their threatening staves display: | 30 |
| Howl hideous discord through the noon of night, | |
| And shake their dreadful lanthorns in our sight. | |
| |
| Say, are not these sufficient to engage | |
| Your high wrought souls eternal war to wage? | |
| Combine your strength these monsters to subdue, | 35 |
| No friends of science and sworn foes to you; | |
| On these—on these, your wordy vengeance pour, | |
| And strive our fading glory to restore. | |
| |
| Ah! think how, late, our mutilated rites | |
| And midnight orgies, were by sudden frights | 40 |
| And loud alarms profaned—the sacrifice, | |
| Stretch’d on a board before our eager eyes, | |
| All naked lay—even when our chieftain stood | |
| Like a high priest, prepared for shedding blood; | |
| Prepared, with wonderous skill to cut or slash, | 45 |
| The gentle sliver or the deep drawn gash; | |
| Prepared to plunge even elbow deep in gore, | |
| Nature and nature’s secrets to explore— | |
| Then a tumultuous cry—a sudden fear— | |
| Proclaim’d the foe—the enraged foe is near— | 50 |
| In some dark hole the hard-got corse was laid, | |
| And we, in wild conclusion, fled dismay’d. | |
| |
| Think how, like brethren, we have shared the toil, | |
| When in the Potter’s field we sought for spoil, | |
| Did midnight ghosts and death and horror brave— | 55 |
| To delve for science in the dreary grave.— | |
| Shall I remind you of that awful night | |
| When our compacted band maintained the fight | |
| Against an armed host?—fierce was the fray, | |
| And yet we bore our sheeted prize away. | 60 |
| Firm on a horse’s back the corse was laid, | |
| High blowing winds the winding sheet display’d; | |
| Swift flew the steed—but still his burthen bore— | |
| Fear made him fleet, who ne’er was fleet before; | |
| O’er tombs and sunken graves he coursed around, | 65 |
| Nor aught respected consecrated ground. | |
| Meantime the battle raged—so loud the strife, | |
| The dead were almost frighten’d into life— | |
| Though not victorious, yet we scorn’d to yield, | |
| Retook our prize, and left the doubtful field. | 70 |
| |
| In this degenerate age, alas! how few | |
| The paths of science with true zeal pursue? | |
| Some trifling contest, some delusive joy | |
| Too oft the unsteady minds of youth employ. | |
| For me—whom Esculapius hath inspired— | 75 |
| I boast a soul with love of science fired; | |
| By one great object is my heart possess’d— | |
| One ruling passion quite absorbs the rest— | |
| In this bright point my hopes and fears unite; | |
| And one pursuit alone can give delight. | 80 |
| |
| To me things are not as to vulgar eyes, | |
| I would all nature’s works anatomize— | |
| This world a living monster seems, to me, | |
| Rolling and sporting in the aerial sea; | |
| The soil encompasses her rocks and stones | 85 |
| As flesh in animals encircles bones. | |
| I see vast ocean, like a heart in play, | |
| Pant systole and diastole every day, | |
| And by unnumbered venous streams supply’d | |
| Up her broad river force the arterial tide. | 90 |
| The world’s great lungs, monsoons and tradewinds show | |
| From east to west, from west to east they blow | |
| Alternate respiration— | |
| The hills are pimples which earth’s face defile, | |
| And burning Ætna, an eruptive bile: | 95 |
| From her vast body perspirations rise, | |
| Condense in clouds and float beneath the skies: | |
| Thus fancy, faithful servant of the heart, | |
| Transforms all nature by her magic art. | |
| |
| E’en mighty love, whose power all powers controls; | 100 |
| Is not, in me, like love in other souls— | |
| Yet I have loved—and Cupid’s subtle dart | |
| Hath through my pericardium pierced my heart. | |
| Brown Cadavera did my soul ensnare, | |
| Was all my thought by night and daily care— | 105 |
| I long’d to clasp, in her transcendant charms, | |
| A living skeleton within my arms. | |
| |
| Long, lank, and lean, my Cadavera stood, | |
| Like the tall pine, the glory of the wood— | |
| Oft times I gazed, with learned skill to trace | 110 |
| The sharp edged beauties of her bony face— | |
| There rose os frontis prominent and bold, | |
| In deep sunk orbits two large eye-balls roll’d, | |
| Beneath those eye-balls, two arch’d bones were seen | |
| Whereon two flabby cheeks hung loose and lean; | 115 |
| Beneath those cheeks, proturberant arose, | |
| In form triangular, her lovely nose, | |
| Like Egypt’s pyramid it seem’d to rise, | |
| Scorn earth, and bid defiance to the skies; | |
| Thin were her lips, and of a sallow hue, | 120 |
| Her open’d mouth exposed her teeth to view; | |
| Projecting strong, protuberant and wide | |
| Stood incisores—and on either side | |
| The canine ranged, with many a beauteous flaw, | |
| And last the grinders, to fill up the jaw— | 125 |
| All in their alveoli fix’d secure, | |
| Articulated by gomphosis sure. | |
| Around her mouth, perpetual smiles had made | |
| Wrinkles wherein the loves and graces play’d; | |
| There, stretch’d and rigid by continual strain, | 130 |
| Appear’d the zygomatic muscles plain, | |
| And broad montanus o’er her peaked chin | |
| Extended to support the heavenly grin. | |
| Long were her fingers and her knuckles bare, | |
| Much like the claw-foot of a walnut chair. | 135 |
| So plain was complex metacarpus shown | |
| It might be fairly counted bone by bone. | |
| Her slender phalanxes were well defined, | |
| And each with each by ginglymus combined. | |
| Such were the charms that did my fancy fire, | 140 |
| And love—chaste, scientific love inspire. | |
| |
