Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/379

 Had Hedgecock's quadrant then been known, I might a lamp-post's height have shown By gas-tronomic skill,--if none Find fault with the metonymy.

O hours of innocence! O ways How far from these unhappy days When all is vicy-versy! No flower more peaceful took its due Than I, who then no difference knew 'Twixt Ursy Major and my true Old crony, Major Hersey.

Now in long broils and feuds we roast, Like Strasburg geese that living toast To make a liver-paté,-- And all because we fondly strove To set the city of our love In scientific fame above Her sister Cincinnati!

We built our tower and furnished it With everything folks said was fit, From coping-stone to grounsel; And then, to give a knowing air, Just nominally assigned its care To that unmanageable affair, A Scientific Council.

We built it, not that one or two Astronomers the stars might view And count the comets' hair-roots, But that it might by all be said How very freely we had bled,-- We were not laying out a bed To force their early square-roots.

The observations we wished made Were on the spirit we'd displayed, Worthy of Athens' high days; But they've put in a man who thinks Only of planets' nodes and winks, So full of astronomic kinks He eats star-fish on Fridays.

The instruments we did not mean For seeing through, but to be seen At tap of Trustee's knuckle; But the Director locks the gate, And makes ourselves and strangers wait While he is ciphering on a slate The rust of Saturn's buckle.