We built our tower and furnished it With everything folks said was fit, From coping-stone to grounsel; And then, to give a knowing air, Just nominally assigned its care To that unmanageable affair, A Scientific Council.
We built it, not that one or two Astronomers the stars might view And count the comets' hair-roots, But that it might by all be said How very freely we had bled,-- We were not laying out a bed To force their early square-roots.
The observations _we_ wished made Were on the spirit we'd displayed, Worthy of Athens' high days; But _they_'ve put in a man who thinks Only of planets' nodes and winks, So full of astronomic kinks He eats star-fish on Fridays.
The instruments we did not mean For seeing through, but to be seen At tap of Trustee's knuckle; But the Director locks the gate, And makes ourselves and strangers wait While he is ciphering on a slate The rust of Saturn's buckle.
So on the wall's outside we stand, Admire the keyhole's contour grand And gateposts' sturdy granite;-- But, ah, is Science safe, we say, With one who treats Trustees this way? Who knows but he may snub, some day, A well-conducted planet?
Who knows what mischief he may brew With such a telescope brand-new At the four-hundredth power? He may bring some new comet down So near that it'll singe the town And do the Burgess-Corps crisp-brown Ere they can storm his tower.
We wanted (having got our show) Some man, that had a name or so, To be our public showman; But this one shuts and locks the gate: Who'll answer but he'll peculate, (And, faith, some stars are missed of late,) Now that he's watched by no man?
Our own discoveries he may steal, Or put night's candles out, to deal At junkshops with the sockets: _Savants_, in other lands or this, If any theory you miss Whereon your cipher graven is, Don't fail to search his pockets!
Lock up your comets: if that fails, Then notch their ears and clip their tails, That you at need may swear to 'em; And watch your nebulous flocks at night, For, if your palings are not tight, He may, to gratify his spite, Let in the Little Bear to 'em.
Then he's so quarrelsome, we've fears He'll set the very Twins by the ears,-- So mad, if you resist him, He'd get Aquarius to play A milkman's trick, some cloudy day, And water all the Milky Way To starve some sucking system.