The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1886-05-26
No. I577.-A Short ENIGMA. /,

Had 1 the painter skill divine
To cheat the eye with hue and line,
Till DER my mimic flowers, the bees,
For real flowers mistaking these,
Amid my painted bees be found,
Distinguished but by flight and sound;
Or coald / from the marble cold
Win forth sucn forms of perfect mold,
That the entranced beholders think
The statues breathe and smile and wink,
And only careful tests can prove
That they can neither feel nor move
Could i do this admiring cries
Would land my merit to the skies.
My mother IN my boyhood day
Taught me wiser art for play:
Selecting from the kitchen store
A dozen tubers-less or more
With wooden pegs she Joined them neat,
And 10, a manikin complete:
Her little Irish boy, she said.
With feet, legs, body. arms, aud head.
OF course the feet you must suppose,
Made of potatoes, sure had toes.
The large pro-tubeT-ant head, likewise,
Was well supplied with proper eyes.
Twas thus the fond maternal heart
Taught the dull boy little art
And in the change from boy to man
Perhaps he has improved the plan
so / shall sing and you shall say
What he produces in his way;
FiIst-No potato, but fruit
OF equal size his taste will suit
A fruit that on a vine is grown
And widely as lore-dppte known.
In are before The fruit you bend
To counterpoise the other end
Which by bat one addition nice
Makes ttUentU hundred pounds precise:
And thus complete his magic brings
A show OF many curious things;
AS shown at different places, times.
IN try to show you these in rhymes.
DaedaluS once this art essayed,
And so a wooden COW he made,
And many curious thing-complete-
That walked or ran upon its feet
At ThebeS, MemnOn'S throat OF stone
Sang at the morn in joyful tone,
but as the God OF Day retired
With sadness seemed his song inspired.
ArchytaS made wOndrouS dove,
That circling wide, flew far above,
Or came and went as it was bid
And other curious things it did.
Friar Bacon had brazen head,
By which some simple words were said.
Albertus MagnuS made man
On such a rare. ingenious plan,
Thomas Acquinas, filled with dread
At what the creature did and said,
Broke il to pieces with his cane
Albertus, crying, filled with pain,
For eli the ruin stretched before MIN:
''Pcri9 opus trdginic d1rnOTUM.'
Descartcs had a figure framed
Which he his child Francina named;
And being feminine in gear,
OF courSe ii talked beyond cOmpeer.
But by one figure most I'm struck
Nancanson's artificial duck.
1t ate, il drank, digeSted food,
Like any duck of natures brood.
Dissolvent acids formed The mass
Which naturally seemed 10 pass.
1t stretched its neck TO take its feed,
Then swallowed il with duck like greed;
Even the muscles in the neck
One might quite readily detect.
'Twould rise upon its feet and walk,
Swim, dabble in the water, quack;
In every act aud every part
Nature seemed reproduced by art
A figure made by Maillardet
Full eighteen different tunes can play.
Her fingers, eyes, and heaving breast
The inventors genius well attest
Till her piano pieces end,
Other strange figures, too, attend
little boy that draws and writes;
figure dancing like the sprites;
humming-bird that comes and sings
And then retires with trembling wings;
A Kissing serpent. spider bold,
And magician quaint and old.
OF all these figures we have seen.
Each one, 8 selfprOpelled machine,
Is Just the lCiOle of that design
Built on The apple of the Uine
Where gOu Ia dlCc before u bend
To cOunterpOise the other end,
Which by but one addition nice,
Is To- ty-huRdred pounds precise.
]. K. P. BAKE