21
Evince an intellect of no common kind,
Of varied craft, kaleidoscopic soul
Fix Astral Systems, point the Astral Pole
The motto of marines, “by land or sea”
In truth pertains as equally to thee;
Lords of the Isles the same;—’tis no strange thing
For are not you of Southern Isles, the King?
But not the monarch of your survey’d coast
Or, you ’ld ne’er wander now a hapless Ghost,
Of what men took you for,—perchance preserv’d
That blind Observatory where nought’s observ’d
Where double lunars a la thumb and nose
Salute the traveller who thither goes,
To offer smoke at Cloacinas shrine
Or other purposes Stubbs can devine———
Says Watts, all knowledge no man can acquire
But you have leisure, and you are for hire,—
Resolve the nebulæ, fate o’er you flung
Your eye not yet as palsied as your tongue.
No, naught is new in this siderial sky
Phenomenon in our Astronomy!!—
What hardships Halley dared for science sake,
And younger Herschell—follow in his wake.———
Apt cases multiply (go search the schools)
Of genius jaded to unlighten fools
Alas you’ve listed in the Club-fool-alique
Of which worn subject I am sorely sick
If not dead-locked the tablets of your brain
No need to take your altitude again.———
Of would-be cognoseenti there is one
(I bide my time, at present partly dumb,)
Who quite devoid of talent, feeling, sense,
Assumes a borrowed, jackdaw consequence
A semi-layman churchman, he would ape,
And tire his clients as he tied his tape—
So while the time-book scores a double fee
His victim’s tortures with strange poetry,
In dogg’rel couplets;—vile tractarian stuff
