University of Virginia Library

The Doctor soon in pleasant mood, Amid the gay assembly stood:
Curtsies and bows and shaking hands With all that etiquette demands
Pass'd on with due becoming grace, Engaging words and smiling face.
The Doctor talk'd and sipp'd his tea With pleasing, mild hilarity;
Nor did he fail a meal to make On butter'd bread and sav'ry cake.
This done, the patronising dame Propos'd some lively, gen'ral game;
And Syntax drew his ready chair In the night's play to take a share.
Pope Joan was nam'd and soon prepar'd:
When each receiv'd the destin'd card.
The comely fair by whom he sat, A lady cheerful in her chat,
Propos'd by way of social whim To share the gain and loss with him.
Who could refuse a pleas'd assent?
And all around there beam'd content.
The game, in gen'ral way, went on,
And Syntax thought they rather won:
But still the lady often cried, “Doctor, our wants must be supplied,
Fortune, at present, is unkind,
And we, dear Sir, must raise the wind.”
He thought, indeed, he rais'd enough,
While she ne'er gave a single puff,
But of the cash maintain'd control And in her lap conceal'd the whole.
At length when this gay game was o'er,
She said, “Alas, we're wond'rous poor,
And to propose to make division Of what is here would be derision.”
Then from her lap, whch seem'd half full, She almost fill'd her reticule,
And left the Sage, with silent lips, To comment on copartnerships;—
While she stalk'd off with waving plume
To wander through some distant room.
—The supper came and pass'd away,
With many a song and frolic gay;
And when the household clock struck one,
The country neighbours all were gone.
—But ere the chamber lights were brought,
The scientific dame besought
The Doctor's patience to bestow His ear for half an hour or so,
While she inform'd him by the way Of the great object of the day.
“For you must know,” she said, “at noon,
O'er the sun's disk the errant moon
Will pass, as that orb has not done
For many a year long fled and gone;
And, in this state of her career, How I rejoice to see you here,
As you will aid my measuring eye By your more learn'd Geometry.
That done, we then may pass the day In tracing out some starry way;
And if it proves a radiant night You'll set my computations right;
When, to conclude, I will make known
A system new and quite my own.”
—The Doctor's chin now touch'd his breast:
She bow'd—and they both went to rest.
The morrow in due progress came,
When Syntax by th'impatient dame
Was led, not to the upper story Which form'd her fix'd observatory,
Where many an instrument appears,
As quadrants, telescopes and spheres,
To aid the scrutinising eye In its vast commerce with the sky:
But did in a balcony place The glass, where she as well could trace
The lunar passage o'er the sun As could from greater height be done.
—At length arriv'd the pregnant noon,
When o'er the sun the darken'd moon
Mov'd on the grand eclipse and show'd
What man to daring science ow'd.
But though the mind may strive to trace
The orbs that float in boundless space,
Though it may pass through realms of air,
Converse with planets rolling there, And by its name call ev'ry star;
The body ne'er will be content Without its native nourishment;
And hunger will suggest the sign Of when to breakfast, sup or dine,
Or when the luncheon should reveal Its interlocutory meal.
That meal, by frequent signals sought, Pat now in eager hurry brought:
But whether 'twas the slipp'ry floor, Or running dog, or banging door,
It may not be required to tell; Certain it is the valet fell,
Swore a loud oath, when plate and platter
And spoons and sauce-boats made a clatter;
While yelping curs, or kick'd or wounded,
Were in the gen'ral din confounded;
A noise which both the gazers drew From their celestial interview.
They saw, by Patrick's luckless trips,
The luncheon in complete eclipse,
As his huge form was rolling over Each dainty dish and smoking cover,
While down his skirts there seem'd to stray
Fresh streamlets of the milky way.
“—The scene around, above, below,”
The Doctor said, “our problems show,
Whether it is attractive power, Or the repellent rules the hour:
Patrick we see could not resist, Or with his feet or with his fist:
His feet gave way, the balance lost,
His paunch to right and left is tost;
The fingers driven from the thumb Make the tureen a vacuum:
And there we see the varlet lie, A proof of Central Gravity.”
Madam replied, “O never mind, A fresh supply we soon shall find,
And, as when Falstaff cried peccavi,
We'll change the gravity for gravy.
Nature hates vacuums, as you know, We therefore will descend below,
And fill, with dainties nice and light The vacuum in your appetite.”
—All this was done, as it might be, On axioms of Philosophy;
When the grave lady thus requested:—
“As other matters are digested,
And we have now an hour to spare,
Let us each take our reas'ning chair,
Then talk of what we've seen and know
Of things above and things below, And do you first your system show;
When you have done, my learn'd divine,
Then I will venture upon mine.”
Syntax.—
“When from the earth we lift our eye
To the vast concave of the sky,
We view it like a curtain spread That shows the welcome morning red;
The noon with golden splendour bright,
And the dark veil that clothes the night:
Thus both the light and shade are given,
With all the varying scenes of Heaven.
But when we lose the sun's bright ray,
The gloomy night succeeds to day:
Again his flaming lustre burns, And then the cheerful day returns:
Still we behold, as they appear, The varying pictures of the year,
The morn may yield its splendid reign
To cloudy mists and pouring rain:
And oft the noon is overcast,
'Mid the black storm and lightning's blast;
While pitchy clouds obscure the night,
And quench the bright stars' glimm'ring light.
Then, to our eyes, the giant sun His annual circuit seems to run
In one grand course, and his career
Assigns the day, and forms the year;
But when his setting orb retires, Or earth no more perceives his fires,
The moon presents her silver ray, And kindly sheds a fainter day:
Yet still she keeps her monthly race
With various beams and changeful face.
—Each planet in its proper sphere Does round its distant orbit steer;
While, with peculiar lustre crown'd, They course a fix'd eternal round,
And, in th'immeasurable space, They know no change of time or place;
But in their rise and their decline All with a foreign radiance shine,
Their brilliant beams are not their own,
But borrow'd of the parent sun,
From whom all nature doth inherit That active and creating spirit
Which gives to life each aim and end,
Where'er his genial rays extend.
—Again we see the thousand stars, Not rang'd in circles or in squares,
But proving with their various light
The hand that made them Infinite.—
If such the harmony that reigns, If thus the Almighty power ordains,
May not these orbs, which your faint eye Sees fix'd in one eternal sky,
To which, as it may seem, is given To shine in a remoter heaven,
Each as a sun its splendour give, And other worlds the rays receive?
Around the zones of other skies,
Their moons may shine, may set and rise
To other globes which raise their pole,
Whose lands spread wide, whose oceans roll,
Whose mountains lift their lofty head,
And shape the valley's deepen'd bed,
With climates that may smile or frown,
To changes subject like our own;
Nay, in the space of air and sky,
Suns, moons and stars and earths may lie Invisible to human eye,
E'en with the powers which have been given
To penetrate the paths of Heaven.
—The comet, whose resistless force Asks cent'ries to complete its course,
I shall not follow as it flies, Nor trace its eccentricities;
Nor speak of sun-beams which are fraught
With swiftness that out-travels thought,
But lost in wonder close my view, And listen silently to you.”