DE SAUTY. AN ELECTRO-CHEMICAL ECLOGUE. Professor. Blue-Nose. PROFESSOR. TELL me, O Provincial! speak, Ceruleo-Nasal! Lives there one De Sauty extant now among you, Whispering Boanerges, son of silent thunder, Holding talk with nations? Is there a De Sauty ambulant on Tellus, Breathes there such a being, O Ceruleo-Nasal? Or is he a mythus, — ancient word for "humbug,"Such as Livy told about the wolf that wet-nursed Romulus and Remus? Was he born of woman, this alleged De Sauty? Like the acarus bred in Crosse's flint-solution? BLUE-NOSE. Many things thou askest, jackknife-bearing stranger, Much-conjecturing mortal, pork-and-treacle-waster! Pretermit thy whittling, wheel thine ear-flap toward me, Thou shalt hear them answered. When the charge galvanic tingled through the cable, As the small opossum held in pouch maternal Sucking in the current. When the current strengthened, bloomed the pale-faced stranger, Took no drink nor victual, yet grew fat and rosy, And from time to time, in sharp articulation, Said, "All right! DE SAUTY." From the lonely station passed the utterance, spreading Through the pines and hemlocks to the groves of steeples, Till the land was filled with loud reverberations OfAll right! DE SAUTY." When the current slackened, drooped the mystic stran ger, Faded, faded, faded, as the stream grew weaker, — Drops of deliquescence glistened on his forehead, Nothing but a cloud of elements organic, C. O. H. N. Ferrum, Chlor. Flu. Sil. Potassa, Such as man is made of. Born of stream galvanic, with it he had perished! THE OLD MAN DREAMS. O FOR one hour of youthful joy! Give back my twentieth spring! I'd rather laugh a bright-haired boy Than reign a gray-beard king! Off with the wrinkled spoils of age! Away with learning's crown! Tear out life's wisdom-written page, And dash its trophies down! One moment let my life-blood stream From boyhood's fount of flame! Give me one giddy, reeling dream Of life all love and fame! - My listening angel heard the prayer, And, calmly smiling, said, "If I but touch thy silvered hair, Thy hasty wish hath sped. "But is there nothing in thy track While the swift seasons hurry back - Ah, truest soul of womankind! Without thee, what were life? One bliss I cannot leave behind: I'll take-my-precious-wife! -The angel took a sapphire pen "And is there nothing yet unsaid Before the change appears? Remember, all their gifts have fled With those dissolving years!" |