IV
Lamarck and Cuvier: The Vera Causa

Fear nothing, Swan of Lichfield. Tuck thy head

Beneath thy snowy wing and sleep at ease.

Drift quietly on thy shadowy Minster Pool.

No voice comes yet to shake thy placid world.

Far off—in France—thy wingless angels make

Strange havoc, but the bearer of this fire,

The wise physician’s unknown comrade, toils

Obscurely now, through his more perilous night,