THE ANATOMIST TO HIS DULCINEA.
I list as thy heart and ascending aorta
Their volumes of valvular harmony pour;
And my soul from that muscular music has caught a
New life ’mid its dry anatomical lore.
Oh, rare is the sound when thy ventricles throb
In a systolic symphony measured and slow,
When the auricles answer with rhythmical sob,
As they murmur a melody wondrously low!
Oh, thy cornea, love, has the radiant light
Of the sparkle that laughs in the icicle’s sheen;
And thy crystalline lens, like a diamond bright,
Through the quivering frame of thine iris is seen!
And thy retina, spreading its lustre of pearl,
Like the far-away nebula, distantly gleams
From a vault of black cellular mirrors that hurl
From their hexagon angles the silvery beams.
Ah! the flash of those orbs is enslaving me still,
As they roll ’neath the palpebræ, dimly translucent,
Obeying in silence the magical will
Of the oculo-motor—pathetic—abducent.
Oh, sweet is thy voice, as it sighingly swells
From the daintily quivering chordæ vocales,
Or rings in clear tones through the echoing cells
Of the antrum, the ethmoid, and sinus frontales!