Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/381

Each snappish as a Leyden jar,
  Will hope to soothe the wordy war
      'Twixt Ologist and Onomer?

  Search a Reform Convention, where
  He- and she-resiarehs prepare
      To get the world in their power,
  You will not, when 'tis loudest, find
  Such gifts to hug and snarl combined
  As drive each astronomic mind
      With fifty-score Great-Bear-power!

  No! put the Bootees on your foot,
  Elope with Virgo, strive to shoot
      That arrow of O'Ryan's,
  Drain Georgian Ciders to the lees,
  Attempt what crackbrained thing you please,
  But dream not you can e'er appease
      An angry man of science!

  Ah, would I were, as I was once,
  To fair Astronomy a dunce,
      Or launching jeux d'esprit at her,
  Of light zodiacal making light,
  Deaf to all tales of comets bright,
  And knowing but such stars as might
      Roll r-rs at our theatre!

  Then calm I drew my night-cap on,
  Nor bondsman was for what went on
      Ere morning in the heavens;
  Twas no concern of mine to fix
  The Pleiades at seven or six,--
  But now the omnium genitrix
      Seems all at sixes and sevens.

  Alas, 'twas in an evil hour
  We signed the paper for the tower,
      With Mrs. D. to head it!
  For, if the Council have their way,
  We've merely had, as Frenchmen say,
  The painful maladie du pay,
      While they get all the credit!

  Boys, henceforth doomed to spell Trustees,
  Think not it ends in double ease
      To those who hold the office;
  Shun Science as you would Despair,
  Sit not in Cassiopeia's chair,
  Nor hope from Berenice's hair
      To bring away your trophies!