Classic Poem

The wise pretend to make it clear,
'Tis no great loss to lose an ear;
Why are we then so fond of two?
When by experience one will do.

'Tis true, they say, cut off the head,
And there's an end; the man is dead;
Because, among all human race,
None e'er was known to have a brace.
But confidently they maintain,
That, where we find the members twain,
The loss of one is no such trouble,
Since t'other will in strength be double;
The limb surviving, you may swear,
Becomes his brother's lawful heir:
Thus, for a trial, let me beg of
Your reverence, but to cut one leg off,
And you shall find by this device,
The t'other will be stronger twice;
For, every day you shall be gaining
New vigour to the leg remaining.
So, when an eye hath lost its brother,
You see the better with the other:
Cut off your hand, and you may do
With t'other hand the work of two:
Because, the soul her power contracts,
And on the brother limb reacts.

But, yet the point is not so clear in
Another case; the sense of hearing:
For though the place of either ear,
Be distant as one head can bear;
Yet Galen most acutely shows you,
(Consult his book De Partium Usu)
That from each ear, as he observes,
There creep two auditory nerves,
(Not to be seen without a glass)
Which near the os petrosum pass;
Thence to the neck; and moving through there;
One goes to this, and one to t'other ear.
Which made my grand-dame always stuff her ears,
Both right and left, as fellow sufferers.
You see my learning; but to shorten it,
When my left ear was deaf a fortnight,
To t'other ear I felt it coming on,
And thus I solve this hard phenomenon.

'Tis true, a glass will bring supplies
To weak, or old, or clouded eyes.
Your arms, though both your eyes were lost,
Would guard your nose against a post.
Without your legs, two legs of wood
Are stronger, and almost as good.
And, as for hands, there have been those,
Who, wanting both, have used their toes.
But no contrivance yet appears,
To furnish artificial ears.