We have boiled everything down to signs, 

And Reasoning’s done on strict mathematical lines. 
If God’s a point, as cylinder he just won’t pass, 
You can’t stand on your head while sitting on your : 

Il 

If a’s the Beloved and b is the Lover, 
My shirt I'll wager ten times over 
That a and b when added up'll 
Constitute one Loving Couple. 

Ill 

Measure the World with lines about, 

You'll never drive its Spirit out. 

If feuds were settled by a and 8, 

The Courts would be swindled out of their fee. 

THE LITTLE OLD MAN OF THE WATER 
A Ballad 

1 

The waters rush with an eerie sound, 
The waves are swirling round and round. 
They seem to feel no pain at all, 
As they break and fall, 
Cold of heart, cold of mind, 
Rushing, rushing all the time. 

2 

But down in the depths where the waters rage 
Sits a mannikin, white with age. 
He dances about when the Moon appears, 
When little star through cloudlet peers. 
Eerily hopping and skipping, he’d try 
To drink the little streamlet dry. 

3 

Waves are his murderers, every one, 
They gnaw his ancient skeleton, 
It cuts through his marrow and limb like ice 
To see them gambol in this wise; 
His face is a grimace of sorrow and gloom 
Till sunshine stops the dance of the Moon. 

4 

The waters then rush with an eerie sound, 
The waves are swirling round and round. 
They seem to feel no pain at all, 
As they break and fall, 
Cold of heart, cold of mind, 
Rushing, rushing all the time. 

Early Literary Experiments 

TO THE MEDICAL STUDENTS 

Damned philistino-medico-student crew, 

The whole world’s just a bag of bones to you. 
When once you've cooled the blood with Hydrogen, 
And when you've felt the pulse’s throbbing, then 

You think, “I’ve done the most I’m able to. 
Man could be very comfortable, too. 

How clever of Almighty God to be 

So very well versed in Anatomy!” 

And flowers are all instruments to use, 

When they’ve been boiled down into herbal brews. 

MEDICAL STUDENT PSYCHOLOGY 

Who eats a supper of dumplings and noodles, 
Will suffer from—nightmares, oodles and oodles. 

MEDICAL STUDENT METAPHYSICS 

No Spirit ever has existed. 

Oxen have lived and never missed it. 

The Soul is idle fantasy; 
In the stomach it certainly can’t be found, 
And if one were able to run it to ground, 

Then almost any pill would set it free. 

Then Spirits would be seen 

Emerging in an endless stream.