Perhaps it was only by patience and care,/At last, that he brought his invention to bear./In youth 'twas projected, but years stole away,/And ere 'twas complete he was wrinkled and gray;/But success is secure, unless energy fails;/And at length he produced
THE PHILOSOPHER'S SCALES
"What were they?" you ask. You shall presently see;/These scales were not made to weigh sugar and tea./O no; for such properties wondrous had they,/That qualities, feelings, and thoughts they could weigh,/Together with articles small or immense,/From mountains or planets to atoms of sense.
Naught was there so bulky but there it would lay,/And naught so ethereal but there it would stay,/And naught so reluctant but in it must go:/All which some examples more clearly will show.
The first thing he weighed was the head of Voltaire,/Which retained all the wit that had ever been there./As a weight he threw in a torn scrap of leaf,/Containing the prayer of the penitent thief;/Then the skull rose aloft with so sudden a spell/That it bounced like a ball on the roof of the cell.
One time he put in Alexander the Great,/With the garment that Dorcas had made for a weight;/And though clad in armor from sandals to crown,/The hero rose up, and the garment went down.
A long row of almshouses, amply endowed/By a well-esteemed Pharisee, busy and proud,/Next loaded one scale; while the other was pressed/By those mites the poor widow dropped into the chest:/Up flew the endowment, not weighing an ounce,/And down, down the farthing-worth came with a bounce.
By further experiments (no matter how)/He found that ten chariots weighed less than one plough;/A sword with gilt trapping rose up in the scale,/Though balanced by only a ten-penny nail;/A shield and a helmet, a buckler and spear,/Weighed less than a widow's uncrystallized tear.
A lord and a lady went up at full sail,/When a bee chanced to light on the opposite scale;/Ten doctors, ten lawyers, two courtiers, one earl,/Ten counsellor's wigs, full of powder and curl,/All heaped in one balance and swinging from thence,/Weighed less than a few grains of candor and sense;/A first water diamond, with brilliance begirt,/than one good potato just washed from the dirt./Yet not mountains of silver and gold could suffice/One pearl to outweigh, -- 'twas THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE.
Last of all, the whole world was bowled in at the grate,/With the soul of a beggar to serve for a weight,/When the former sprang up with so strong a rebuff/That it made a vast rent and escaped at the roof!/When balanced in air, it ascended on high,/And sailed up aloft, a balloon in the sky;/While the scale with the soul in't so mightily fell/That it jerked the philosopher out of his cell.
by Jane Taylor (1783-1824)"What were they?" you ask. You shall presently see;/These scales were not made to weigh sugar and tea./O no; for such properties wondrous had they,/That qualities, feelings, and thoughts they could weigh,/Together with articles small or immense,/From mountains or planets to atoms of sense.
Naught was there so bulky but there it would lay,/And naught so ethereal but there it would stay,/And naught so reluctant but in it must go:/All which some examples more clearly will show.
The first thing he weighed was the head of Voltaire,/Which retained all the wit that had ever been there./As a weight he threw in a torn scrap of leaf,/Containing the prayer of the penitent thief;/Then the skull rose aloft with so sudden a spell/That it bounced like a ball on the roof of the cell.
One time he put in Alexander the Great,/With the garment that Dorcas had made for a weight;/And though clad in armor from sandals to crown,/The hero rose up, and the garment went down.
A long row of almshouses, amply endowed/By a well-esteemed Pharisee, busy and proud,/Next loaded one scale; while the other was pressed/By those mites the poor widow dropped into the chest:/Up flew the endowment, not weighing an ounce,/And down, down the farthing-worth came with a bounce.
By further experiments (no matter how)/He found that ten chariots weighed less than one plough;/A sword with gilt trapping rose up in the scale,/Though balanced by only a ten-penny nail;/A shield and a helmet, a buckler and spear,/Weighed less than a widow's uncrystallized tear.
A lord and a lady went up at full sail,/When a bee chanced to light on the opposite scale;/Ten doctors, ten lawyers, two courtiers, one earl,/Ten counsellor's wigs, full of powder and curl,/All heaped in one balance and swinging from thence,/Weighed less than a few grains of candor and sense;/A first water diamond, with brilliance begirt,/than one good potato just washed from the dirt./Yet not mountains of silver and gold could suffice/One pearl to outweigh, -- 'twas THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE.
Last of all, the whole world was bowled in at the grate,/With the soul of a beggar to serve for a weight,/When the former sprang up with so strong a rebuff/That it made a vast rent and escaped at the roof!/When balanced in air, it ascended on high,/And sailed up aloft, a balloon in the sky;/While the scale with the soul in't so mightily fell/That it jerked the philosopher out of his cell.
(with a slight liberty taken by me in the intro)
