Black Beetles in Amber

It was a bruised and battered chap

The victim of some dire mishap,

Who sat upon a rock and spent

His breath in this ungay lament:

"Some wars—I've frequent heard of such—

Has beat the everlastin' Dutch!

But never fight was fit by man

To equal this which has began

In our (I'm in it, if you please)

Academy of Sciences.

For there is various gents belong

To it which go persistent wrong,

And loving the debates' delight

Calls one another names at sight.

Their disposition, too, accords

With fighting like they all was lords!

Sech impulses should be withstood:

'Tis scientific to be good.

"'Twas one of them, one night last week,

Rose up his figure for to speak:

'Please, Mr. Chair, I'm holding here

A resolution which, I fear,

Some ancient fossils that has bust

Their cases and shook off their dust

To sit as Members here will find

Unpleasant, not to say unkind.'

And then he read it every word,

And silence fell on all which heard.

That resolution, wild and strange,

Proposed a fundamental change,

Which was that idiots no more

Could join us as they had before!

"No sooner was he seated than

The members rose up, to a man.

Each chap was primed with a reply

And tried to snatch the Chairman's eye.

They stomped and shook their fists in air,

And, O, what words was uttered there!

"The Chair was silent, but at last

He hove up his proportions vast

And stilled them tumults with a look

By which the undauntedest was shook.

He smiled sarcastical and said:

'If Argus was the Chair, instead

Of me, he'd lack enough of eyes

Each orator to recognize!

And since, denied a hearing, you

Might maybe undertake to do

Each other harm before you cease,

I've took some steps to keep the peace:

I've ordered out—alas, alas,

That Science e'er to such a pass

Should come!—I've ordered out—the gas!'

"O if a tongue or pen of fire

Was mine I could not tell entire

What the ensuin' actions was.

When swollered up in darkness' jaws

We fit and fit and fit and fit,

And everything we felt we hit!

We gouged, we scratched and we pulled hair,

And O, what words was uttered there!

And when at last the day dawn came

Three hundred Scientists was lame;

Two hundred others couldn't stand,

They'd been so careless handled, and

One thousand at the very least

Was spread upon the floor deceased!

'Twere easy to exaggerate,

But lies is things I mortal hate.

"Such, friends, is the disaster sad

Which has befel the Cal. Acad.

And now the question is of more

Importance than it was before:

Shall vacancies among us be

To idiots threw open free?"