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Morituri Salutamus

HE wild-eyed March has come again
With frightened face and flying feet,
And hands just loosed from winter's chain
Outstretched the reluctant spring to greet.

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
Or hunted down the barren wold,
Where timidly the crocus lifts

Her shaken cap of green and gold.

Above the dark pool's ruffled breast
The swallow skims on glancing wing,
And from yon brown elm's towering crest
I hear the amorous mock-bird sing.

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;
One on whom God had set his sign,
The well-beloved of all his peers,

But by the poor deemed half divine.

The good old Doctor! mild as wise,
With pleasant jest for all he met,
The kindly humor in his eyes

Flashed through the lips so gravely sweet.

Firm hand, big heart and ample brain
Toughened by battles fought and won,
Scarred with the wind and winter rain,

And bronzed by many a summer sun.

Not largely learned in useless lore,
Nor dully studious overmuch,
Saved by the sturdy wit he bore

From making other's wit his crutch.

But many a childing mother owned
His ready skill, and many a wife
Whose hope or stay in anguish groaned,
Owed to his care some precious life.

All perilous soundings on his chart
Were pricked by faithful memory;

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,
The path of honor plain and broad;
His simple creed, best understood,
Was duty-unto man and God.

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,
Gave food and wine for benison,
Nor, though his pouch was illy stored,
Forgot the pence to help him on.

When civic strife ran fierce and high,
His was the storm-assuaging speech
That bade the wordy tumult die

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
The ghastly dews of pestilence,
A stealthy horror that confused
The brain and palsied every sense.

Where'er the lowering tempest broke,
Terror and doom were on the wind;
The crowded cities felt the stroke

And want and famine stalked behind.

As rose the long, wild wail of woe
By lake and river, plain and hill,
The Yellow Death swept on, and lo!
A land of corpses, stark and chill.

Then, at the summons, stepping down,
By never one selfish thought delayed,
Where, racked with pain, the stricken town
Stretched forth its fevered hands for aid,

Or where, with anguish looking up,
The cowering hamlet, kneeling there
Drank to the dregs the bitter cup

That might not pass for any prayer,

He moved, like some supernal guest,
With healings on his wings, and balm
To bring the tortured body rest,

And to the spirit whisper calm.

Where Misery crouched in darkest den,
With foulest squalor grim and gaunt,

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,
Fell at his post without a word.

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,
Pure as that virtue he approved;

And fainting in the dusky tree

That rocks above his dreamless sleep,
With drowsy hum of murmurous bee,
A solemn hush will summer keep;

The autumn feed with thousand rills
The drouth of willow-margined streams,
And touch the sadness of the hills

With crimson and with golden gleams;

But, evermore, all hours that bring

Or summer light, or winter gloom,
Will pass by on unheeded wing,

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,
One tender soul he died to save,
Remembering all he was, shall say:

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Here sleeps beneath his native soil,
Who since his manhood's work began,

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,
And I was likely to recover.

But, when the wit began to wheeze,
And wine had warmed the politician,
Cur'd yesterday of my disease,

I died last night of my physician.

-MATTHEW PRIOR.

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