Morituri Salutamus HE wild-eyed March has come again From her bleak hills across the lea. She sweeps with tresses backward blown, And far out on the homeless sea The maddened billows hear her moan. The leaves are whirled in eddying drifts Her shaken cap of green and gold. Above the dark pool's ruffled breast It leans above the gabled roof That crowns the long hill's fallow side, A summer shelter, shower proof When June shall flaunt her leafy pride; But naked yet, in wintry guise Its trailing masses sweep the ground, The bare trunk lifted to the skies A mark for many a league around. His sire had planted it when first He made this woodland wild his own; Beneath its boughs his youth was nursed, And with its growth himself had grown To manhood, and to riper years; But by the poor deemed half divine. The good old Doctor! mild as wise, Flashed through the lips so gravely sweet. Firm hand, big heart and ample brain And bronzed by many a summer sun. Not largely learned in useless lore, From making other's wit his crutch. But many a childing mother owned All perilous soundings on his chart He knew the limits of his art As seamen know the unfathomed sea. And every season when to sow Each several seed in order due, And of the wilding weeds that grow The hidden use of each he knew. All earnest faith he held as good, Not passing with averted face The wayfarer fallen by the road, Naked and bruised, and in disgrace, Fainting beneath life's bitter load. Into his wounds the oil he poured, When civic strife ran fierce and high, And linked the neighbors, each to each. So, walking in this narrow round Of homliest cares and use, at best, His days, with simple pleasures crowned, Had moved him to his honored rest; When suddenly a darkness fell, Black as the pall of thickest night, As though some fiend from nether hell Had come between us and God's light. From both its brooding pinions oozed Where'er the lowering tempest broke, And want and famine stalked behind. As rose the long, wild wail of woe Then, at the summons, stepping down, Or where, with anguish looking up, That might not pass for any prayer, He moved, like some supernal guest, And to the spirit whisper calm. Where Misery crouched in darkest den, He only saw his fellow-men And knew the largest claim in want. Felt the fierce poison in his vein, Saw o'er his head the impending sword And, fronting fate in high disdain, When winter snows had purged the lands, And bleak December winds were shrill, They bore him back with reverent hands, To his old home upon the hill. The spring will dress his narrow bed With all the wild flowers that he loved, And round his rest a fragrance shed, And fainting in the dusky tree That rocks above his dreamless sleep, The autumn feed with thousand rills With crimson and with golden gleams; But, evermore, all hours that bring Or summer light, or winter gloom, Nor pause to note his nameless tomb. What needs his name? or any name Of those brave hearts that with him died? They battled not for fee or fame, Our loyal brothers, true and tried. Enough if standing by his grave In some far twilight's fading day, Here sleeps beneath his native soil, Gave all his days of useful toil And, at the last, his LIFE for man." -Dr. J. DICKSON BRUNS. The Remedy Worse than the Disease I SENT for Radcliffe; was so ill That other doctors gave me over; He felt my pulse, prescribed a pill, But, when the wit began to wheeze, I died last night of my physician. -MATTHEW PRIOR. |