Extracts From A Medical Poem - The Stability Of Science

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 forehead 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?