Page:May-day and other pieces, Emerson, 1867.djvu/63

Rh Competing seekers of a rumored lake,

Whose unauthenticated waves we named

Lake Probability,—our carbuncle,

Long sought, not found.

Two Doctors in the camp

Dissected the slain deer, weighed the trout's brain,

Captured the lizard, salamander, shrew,

Crab, mice, snail, dragon-fly, minnow, and moth;

Insatiate skill in water or in air

Waved the scoop-net, and nothing came amiss;

The while, one leaden pot of alcohol

Gave an impartial tomb to all the kinds.

Not less the ambitious botanist sought plants,

Orchis and gentian, fern, and long whip-scirpus,

Rosy polygonum, lake-margin's pride,

Hypnum and hydnum, mushroom, sponge, and moss,

Or harebell nodding in the gorge of falls.