 | The magic fountain |  |
134
TO A SURGEON,
WHO HAD PERFORMED A SUCCESSFUL OPERATION ON MY RIGHT EYE.
I know not whether, on my word,
To thank you for my eye restored!
My left, I find, till now had got
A credit which it merits not;
For sparkle as it may, by th' Mass!
It might as well have been of glass;
And had your blunder spoiled my right,
I must, ere now, have lost my sight.
Then think how grand to have it read,
After one's numbered with the dead,
In some Review whose potent name
Is passport sure to deathless fame,
Lockhart's or Jeffrey's—“We may note,
En passant, what has struck our thought
As a coincidence, that three
The greatest bards the world shall see,
Homer and Milton, and though last,
By neither, we believe, surpassed,
Story, an honour to his kind,
And to his country—all were blind!”
To thank you for my eye restored!
My left, I find, till now had got
A credit which it merits not;
For sparkle as it may, by th' Mass!
It might as well have been of glass;
And had your blunder spoiled my right,
I must, ere now, have lost my sight.
Then think how grand to have it read,
After one's numbered with the dead,
In some Review whose potent name
Is passport sure to deathless fame,
135
En passant, what has struck our thought
As a coincidence, that three
The greatest bards the world shall see,
Homer and Milton, and though last,
By neither, we believe, surpassed,
Story, an honour to his kind,
And to his country—all were blind!”
Now think, this bright association
Of names, which had from generation
To generation praise ensured me,
Your skill prevented when it cured me.
That skill, I own, demands applause,
But then, my Glory 's—where it was;
And this, as it respects my bardship,
Converts your favour to a hardship!
Of names, which had from generation
To generation praise ensured me,
Your skill prevented when it cured me.
That skill, I own, demands applause,
But then, my Glory 's—where it was;
And this, as it respects my bardship,
Converts your favour to a hardship!
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