Charmer, on a given straight line, And which we will call B C, Meeting at a common point A, Draw the lines A C, A B. But, my sweetest, so arrange it That they're equal, all the three; Then you'll find that, in the sequel, All their angles, too are equal. Equal angles, so to term them, Each one opposite its brother! Equal joys and equal sorrows, Equal hopes, 'twere sin to smother, Equal,—O, divine ecstatics,— Based on Hutton's mathematics!
PUNCH.
THE LAWYER'S INVOCATION TO SPRING
Whereas, on certain boughs and sprays Now divers birds are heard to sing, And sundry flowers their heads upraise, Hail to the coming on of spring!
The songs of those said birds arouse The memory of our youthful hours, As green as those said sprays and boughs, As fresh and sweet as those said flowers.
The birds aforesaid,—happy pairs,— Love, mid the aforesaid boughs, inshrines In freehold nests; themselves, their heirs, Administrators, and assigns.
O busiest term of Cupid's Court, Where tender plaintiffs actions bring,— Season of frolic and of sport, Hail, as aforesaid, coming spring!
THE COSMIC EGG.
Upon a rock yet uncreate, Amid a chaos inchoate, An uncreated being sate; Beneath him, rock, Above him, cloud. And the cloud was rock, And the rock was cloud. The rock then growing soft and warm, The cloud began to take a form, A form chaotic, vast, and vague, Which issued in the cosmic egg. Then the Being uncreate On the egg did incubate, And thus became the incubator; And of the egg did allegate, And thus became the alligator; And the incubator was potentate, But the alligator was potentator.