In the spring of 1865,
Professor Agassiz and his young wunderkind
set forth in earnest
to assail the toehold
of Charles Darwin’s genius,
to best that dour intellectual
in the rank jungles of the Amazon Basin.

Rapt with expectation
regarding the finny denizens
of yon exuberant delta,
you bid adieu to Cambridge chill
and the smoldering coals of Old Richmond,
to charge headlong
towards a new birth of freedom
and spacious conveyance:
your blazing rendezvous with the sultry–
her steaming reach,
her star-eyed effluvia.