And log-heaps and brush-heaps and wild-cats and bears,
And agues and fevers and thistles and briers,
Poor kinsmen, rich foemen, false saints, and true liars;
Who oft, like the "man in our town," overwise,
Through the brambles of error had scratched out his eyes,
And when the unwelcome result he had seen,
Had altered his notion,
Reversing the motion,
And scratched them both in again, perfect and clean;
Who had weathered some storms, as a sailor might say,