y.

Now in long broils and feuds we roast,
Like Strasburg geese that living toast
To make a liver-_pate_,--
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.

So on the wall's outside we stand,
Admire the keyhole's contour grand
And gateposts' sturdy granite;--
But, ah, is Science safe, we say,
With one who treats Trustees this way?
Who knows but he may snub, some day,
A well-conducted planet?

Who knows what mischief he may brew
With such a telescope brand-new
At the four-hundredth power?
He may bring some new comet down
So near that it'll singe the town
And do the Burgess-Corps crisp-brown
Ere they can storm his tower.

We wanted (having got our show)
Some man, that had a name or so,
To be our public showman;
But this one shuts and locks the gate:
Who'll answer but he'll peculate,
(And, faith, some stars are missed of late,)
Now that he's watched by no man?

Our own discoveries he may steal,
Or put night's candles out, to deal
At junkshops with the sockets:
_Savants_, in other lands or this,
If any theory you miss
Whereon your cipher graven is,
Don't fail to search his pockets!

Lock up your comets: if that fails,
Then notch their ears and clip their tails,
That you at need may swear to 'em;
And watch your nebulous flocks