He jumped into a bramble-bush,
And scratched out both his eyes.
But when he saw his eyes were out,
With all his might and main
He jumped into another bush,
And scratched them in again!"
Old Dr. Hahnemann read the tale,
(And he was wondrous wise,)
Of the man who, in the bramble-bush,
Had scratched out both his eyes.
And the fancy tickled mightily
His misty German brain,
That, by jumping in another bush,
He got them back again.
So he called it "homo-hop-athy".
And soon it came about,
That a curious crowd among the thorns
Was hopping in and out.
Yet, disguise it by the longest name
They may, it is no use;
For the world knows the discovery
Was made by Mother Goose!
And not alone in medicine
Doth the theory hold good;
In Life and in Philosophy,
The maxim still hath stood:
A morsel more of anything,
When one has got enough,
And Nature's energy disowns
The whole unkindly stuff.
A second negative affirms;
And two magnetic poles
Of charge identical, repel,—
As sameness sunders souls.
Touched with a first, fresh suffering,
All solace is despised;
But gathered sorrows grow serene,
And grief is neutralized.
And he who, in the world's mêlée,
Hath chanced the worse to catch,
May mend the matter, if he come
Back, boldly, to the scratch;
Minding the lesson he received
In boyhood, from his mother.
Whose cheery word, for many a bump,
Was, Up and take another!
HOBBY-HORSES
"I had a little pony,
His name was Dapple Gray:
I lent him to a lady
To ride a mile away.
She whipped him,
She lashed him,
She rode him through the mire;
I would n't lend my pony now,
For all the lady's hire."
Our hobbies, of whatever sort
They be, mine honest friend,
Of fancy, enterprise, or thought,
'T is hardly wise to lend.
Some fair imagination, shrined
In form poetic, maybe,
You fondly trusted to the World,—
That most capricious Lady.
Or a high, romantic theory,
Magnificently planned,
In flush of eager confidence
You bade her take in hand.
But she whipped it, and she lashed it,
And bespattered it with mire,
Till your very soul felt stained within,
And scourged with stripes of fire.
Yet take this thought, and hold it fast,
Ye Martyrs of To-day!
That same great World, with all its scorn,
You 've lifted on its way!
MISSIONS
"Hogs in the garden,—
Catch 'em, Towser!
Cows in the cornfield,—
Run, boys, run!
Fire on the mountains,—
Run, boys, run boys!
Cats in the cream-pot,—
Run, girls, run!"
I don't stand up for Woman's Right
Not I,—no, no!
The real lionesses fight,—
I let it go.
Yet, somehow, as I catch the call
Of the world's voice,
That speaks a summons unto all
Its girls and boys;
In such strange contrast still it rings
As church-bells' bome
To the pert sound of tinkling things
One hears at home;
And wakes an impulse, not germane
Perhaps, to woman,
Yet with a thrill that makes it plain
'T is truly human;—
A sudden tingle at the springs
Of noble feeling,
The spirit-power for valiant things
Clearly revealing.
But Eden's curse doth daily deal
Its certain dole,—
And the old grasp upon the heel
Holds back the soul!
So, when some rousing deed's to do,
To save a nation,
Or, on the mountains, to subdue
A conflagration,
Woman! the work is not for you;
Mind your vocation!
Out from the cream-pot comes a mew
Of tribulation!
Meekly the world's great exploits leave
Unto your betters;
So bear the punishment of Eve,
Spirit in fetters!
Only, the hidden fires will glow,
And, now and then,
A beacon blazeth out below
That startles men!
Some Joan, through battle-field to stake,
Danger embracing;
Some Florence, for sweet mercy's sake
Pestilence facing;
Whose holy valor vindicates
The royal birth
That, for its crowning, only waits
The end of earth;
And, haply, when we all stand freed,
In strength immortal,
Such virgin-lamps the host shall lead
Through