The Blind Men and the Elephant "And I'll be sworn, that when you've seen "Well, then, at once to ease the doubt," 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- (Then first the creature found a tongue), When next you talk of what you view, 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, The Second, feeling of the tusk, Cried, "Ho! what have we here So very round and smooth and sharp? This wonder of an Elephant Is very like a spear!" The Third approached the animal, The squirming trunk within his hands, 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 The Sixth no sooner had begun Than, seizing on the swinging tail "I see," quoth he, "the Elephant 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 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, Once formed the contrivance we now shall explain; "What were they?" you ask. You shall presently see; From mountains or planets to atoms of sense. Naught was there so bulky but there it would lay, The first thing he weighed was the head of Voltaire, One time he put in Alexander the Great, With the garment that Dorcas had made, for a weight; A long row of almshouses, amply endowed By a well-esteemed Pharisee, busy and proud, 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 lord and a lady went up at full sail, When a bee chanced to light on the opposite scale; Last of all, the whole world was bowled in at the grate, And sailed up aloft, a balloon in the sky; While the scale with the soul in't so mightily fell 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, One day a learned man came by, "Wise sir, please tell me wherein lies- The something that my art defies, 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:- Could only weep and say, "But where- 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; "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! |