The Blind Men and the Elephant

"And I'll be sworn, that when you've seen
The reptile, you'll pronounce him green."

"Well, then, at once to ease the doubt,"
Replies the man, "I'll turn him out:
And when before your eyes I've set him,

If

you don't find him black, I'll eat him." He said: then full before their sight

Produced the beast, and lo!-'twas white.

Both stared, the man looked wondrous wise-
"My children," the chameleon cries,

(Then first the creature found a tongue),
"You all are right, and all are wrong:

When next you talk of what you view,
Think others see as well as you:

Nor wonder, if you find that none

Prefers your eyesight to his own."

1877

After De La Motte, by James Merrick [1720-1769]

THE BLIND MEN AND THE ELEPHANT

A HINDO0 FABLE

It was six men of Indostan

To learning much inclined,

Who went to see the Elephant

(Though all of them were blind),

That each by observation

Might satisfy his mind.

The First approached the Elephant,

And happening to fall

Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!”

The Second, feeling of the tusk,

Cried, "Ho! what have we here

So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear

This wonder of an Elephant

Is very like a spear!"

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take

The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant

Is very like a snake!"

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,

And felt about the knee.

"What most this wondrous beast is like Is mighty plain," quoth he;

" "Tis clear enough the Elephant Is very like a tree!"

The Fifth who chanced to touch the ear, Said: "E'en the blindest man

Can tell what this resembles most;

Deny the fact who can,

This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!"

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,

Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,

"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
very like a rope!"

Is

And so these men of Indostan

Disputed loud and long,

Each in his own opinion

Exceeding stiff and strong,

Though each was partly in the right
And all were in the wrong!

MORAL

So oft in theologic wars,

The disputants, I ween, Rail on in utter ignorance

Of what each other mean,

The Philosopher's Scales

And prate about an Elephant

Not one of them has seen!

1879

John Godfrey Saxe (1816–1887]

THE PHILOSOPHER'S SCALES

A MONK, when his rites sacerdotal were o'er,
In the depths of his cell with its stone-covered floor,
Resigning to thought his chimerical brain,

Once formed the contrivance we now shall explain;
But whether by magic's or alchemy's powers
We know not; indeed, 'tis no business of ours.
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.
Oh 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 the torn scrap of a leaf
Containing the prayer of the penitent thief;
When 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 trappings 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 counsellors' 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 brilliants 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.

Jane Taylor [1783-1824]

THE MAIDEN AND THE LILY

A LILY in my garden grew,

Amid the thyme and clover;

No fairer lily ever blew,

Search all the wide world over.

The Owl-Critic

Its beauty passed into my heart:

I know 'twas very silly,

But I was then a foolish maid,
And it a perfect lily.

One day a learned man came by,
With years of knowledge laden,
And him I questioned with a sigh,
Like any foolish maiden:-

"Wise sir, please tell me wherein lies-
I know the question's silly--

The something that my art defies,
And makes a perfect lily."

He smiled, then bending plucked the flower,

Then tore it, leaf and petal,

And talked to me for full an hour,

And thought the point to settle:-
"Therein it lies," at length he cries;
And I-I know 'twas silly-

Could only weep and say, "But where-
O doctor, where's my lily?"

1881

John Fraser [1750-1811]

THE OWL-CRITIC

"WHO stuffed that white owl?" No one spoke in the shop:

The barber was busy, and he couldn't stop;

The customers, waiting their turns, were all reading

The Daily, the Herald, the Post, little heeding

The young man who blurted out such a blunt question;
Not one raised a head, or even made a suggestion;
And the barber kept on shaving.

"Don't you see, Mister Brown,"

Cried the youth with a frown,

"How wrong the whole thing is,

How preposterous each wing is,

How flattened the head is, how jammed down the neck is—

In short, the whole owl, what an ignorant wreck 'tis!