I CLIMBED one night the winding flight

To a medical student's room;

A place that is drear and sombre and queer,

And full of unearthly gloom.

On his table there lay a volume of Gray,

A work on the human frame,

Which was bound, not in calf, but the skin they call scarf,

From an Ethiop's biceps that came.

The grinning skull of a yellow Mongol

Above his head was set,

Which all the world's plaudits from its empty orbits

With a look of derision met.

As if it would say to the thoughtless and gay,

"Make the most of your pleasures, my lad;

In a very short while you will change that smile

For a leer that is ghastly and sad."

A human heart, transfixed with a dart,

Preserved in a bottle was shown, -

A heart with a story, which little of glory

And much of sorrow had known.

And the foot of a Jew of an ebony hue,

Injected with acid carbolic,

Which is said to preserve every tissue and nerve

With an odor that's quite diabolic.

As I left my friend, and turned to wend

My lonesome homeward way,

A peal of loud laughter came following after,

And a voice that was merry and gay, -

"Those horrors of thine are all in thy mind;

The room has none for me;

The flesh and the bones are but dry dust and stones.

You view them too curiously."

H. H., '76.