THE feeble sea-birds, blinded in the storms, <br />On some tall lighthouse dash their little forms, <br />And the rude granite scatters for their pains <br />Those small deposits that were meant for brains. <br />Yet the proud fabric in the morning’s sun <br />Stands all unconscious of the mischief done; <br />Still the red beacon pours its evening rays <br />For the lost pilot with as full a blaze,— <br />Nay, shines, all radiance, o’er the scattered fleet <br />Of gulls and boobies brainless at its feet. <br /> <br />I tell their fate, though courtesy disclaims <br />To call our kind by such ungentle names; <br />Yet, if your rashness bid you vainly dare, <br />Think of their doom, ye simple, and beware. <br /> <br />See where aloft its hoary forehead rears <br />The towering pride of twice a thousand years! <br />Far, far below the vast incumbent pile <br />Sleeps the gray rock from art’s AEgean isle <br />Its massive courses, circling as they rise, <br />Swell from the waves to mingle with the skies; <br />There every quarry lends its marble spoil, <br />And clustering ages blend their common toil; <br />The Greek, the Roman, reared its ancient walls, <br />The silent Arab arched its mystic halls; <br />In that fair niche, by countless billows laved, <br />Trace the deep lines that Sydenham engraved; <br />On yon broad front that breasts the changing swell, <br />Mark where the ponderous sledge of Hunter fell; <br />By that square buttress look where Louis stands, <br />The stone yet warm from his uplifted hands; <br />And say, O Science, shall thy life-blood freeze, <br />When fluttering folly flaps on walls like these?<br /><br />Oliver Wendell Holmes<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/extracts-from-a-medical-poem-the-stability-of-science/
