Classic and Contemporary Poetry
EXTRACTS FROM A MEDICAL POEM: THE STABILITY OF SCIENCE, by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: The feeble sea-birds, blinded in the storms Last Line: When fluttering folly flaps on walls like these? Subject(s): Physicians; Science; Doctors; Scientists | ||||||||
THE feeble sea-birds, blinded in the storms, On some tall lighthouse dash their little forms, And the rude granite scatters for their pains Those small deposits that were meant for brains. Yet the proud fabric in the morning's sun Stands all unconscious of the mischief done; Still the red beacon pours its evening rays For the lost pilot with as full a blaze, -- Nay, shines, all radiance, o'er the scattered fleet Of gulls and boobies brainless at its feet. I tell their fate, though courtesy disclaims To call our kind by such ungentle names; Yet, if your rashness bid you vainly dare, Think of their doom, ye simple, and beware! See where aloft its hoary forchead rears The towering pride of twice a thousand years! Far, far below the vast incumbent pile Sleeps the gray rock from art's AEgean isle Its massive courses, circling as they rise, Swell from the waves to mingle with the skies; There every quarry lends its marble spoil, And clustering ages blend their common toil; The Greek, the Roman, reared its ancient walls, The silent Arab arched its mystic halls; In that fair niche, by countless billows laved, Trace the deep lines that Sydenham engraved; On yon broad front that breasts the changing swell, Mark where the ponderous sledge of Hunter fell; By that square buttress look where Louis stands, The stone yet warm from his uplifted hands; And say, O Science, shall thy life-blood freeze, When fluttering folly flaps on walls like these? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...REACTIONARY ESSAY ON APPLIED SCIENCE by PHYLLIS MCGINLEY THE POLITICIAN OF THE IRISH EARLDOM by HILAIRE BELLOC AN AMERICAN SCENE by NORMAN DUBIE WHY WAIT FOR SCIENCE by ROBERT FROST DIXIT INSIPIENS by CAROLYN KIZER GLOBULE by ALICIA SUSKIN OSTRIKER A BALLAD OF THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY [DECEMBER 16, 1773] by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES |
|