DEDICATED TO HIS FRIEND GEORGE JOHNSTON.

How are you, George, my rhyming brother?
We should be kinder to each other,
For we are kindred souls at least;
I don't mean kindred, like the beast,--
Mere blood and bones and flesh and matter,--
But what this last is makes no matter.
Philosophers have tried to teach it,
But all their learning cannot reach it;
'Tis matter still, "that's what's the matter"
With all their philosophic chatter,
And Latin, Greek, and Hebrew clatter,
Crucibles, retorts, and receivers,
Wedges, inclined planes, and levers,
Screws, blow pipes, electricity and light,
And fifty other notions, quite
Too much to either read or write.
Just ask the wisest, What is matter?
And notice how he will bespatter
The subject, in his vain endeavor,
With deep philosophy so clever,
To prove you what you knew before,
That matter's matter, and no more.
Well, this much then, we know at least,
That matter's substance, and the beast
And bird and fish and creeping thing
That moves on foot, with fin or wing,
Is matter, just like you and me.