The Taxidermist.

From other men he stands apart,         Wrapped in sublimity of thought         Where futile fancies enter not;         With starlike purpose pressing on         Where Agassiz and Audubon     Labored, and sped that noble art         Yet in its pristine dawn.     Something to conquer, to achieve,         Makes life well worth the struggle hard;         Its petty ills to disregard,         In high endeavor day by day         With this incentive - that he may     Somehow mankind the richer leave         When he has passed away.     Forest and field he treads alone,         Finding companionship in birds,         In reptiles, rodents, yea, in herds         Of drowsy cattle fat and sleek;         For these to him a language speak     To common multitudes unknown         As tones of classic Greek.     Unthinking creatures and untaught,         They to his nature answer back         Something his fellow mortals lack;         And oft educe from him the sigh         That they unnoticed soon must die,     Leaving of their existence naught         To be remembered by.     Man may aspire though in the slough;         May dream of glory, strive for fame,         Thirst for the prestige of a name.         And shall these friends, that so invite         The study of the erudite,     Ever as he beholds them now         Perish like sparks of light?     Nay, 'tis his purpose and design         To keep them: not like mummies old         Papyrus-mantled fold on fold,         But elephant, or dove, or swan,         Its native hue and raiment on,     In effigy of plumage fine,         Or skin its native tawn.     What God hath wrought thus time shall tell,         And thus endowment rich and vast         Be rescued from the buried past;         And rare reliques that never fade         Be in the manikin portrayed     Till taxidermy witness well         The debt to science paid.     Lo! one appeareth unforetold -         This re-creator, yea, of men;         Making him feel as born again         Who looketh up with reverent eyes,         Through wonders that his soul surprise,     That great Creator to behold         All-powerful, all-wise.