When the clay lies at your feet,
We can light no life within it,
Cannot make the dead heart beat
For one minute.

Yet this thought remains with him,
Dead he is to outward seeming.
Still the eyes, so glazed and dim,
See what lies beyond our dreaming;
Know the secret of the spheres

Truth of doom or bliss supernal,
Read the riddle of the years-
Life eternal!

So we 'll leave him, ready now
For tomorrow morning's lecture,
Little recks that placid brow

Of our wayward wild conjecture.

It may be our fate to die

All unwept and missed by no menAs he lies there we may lie;

ABSIT OMEN.

-H. SAVILE Clarke.

The Joking Doctor

KNEW a doctor years ago,

Aged forty, fat, and ruddy,

Who made of puns, both high and low,

A most important study.

To men who fasted for a day,

Whose lungs were but presumption,

He'd say in a most joyous way,

"How great is your consumption!"

THE JOKING DOCTOR

And added that in many ways,

His heart was sympathetic,

And how his skill brought forth more praise,
Than any known emetic.

When called upon to use his power,
And check some angry tumor,
He'd cry "how CAN you look so sour,
You 're in delicious humor!"

And if some sighed "the room needs air,"
Before the mourners present,

He'd smile, and gently say, "forbear,
Your rheum is very pleasant."

My daughter Annie, on the stoop,
Fell sick in strangest manner,

This doctor came, and said “it 's croup,
I'll ipecac you, Anna!"

And when I asked him, "shall I die."
After some great entreaties,

He muttered "yes," with one closed eye,
"Unless you diabetes!"

And thus for many, many years,

This creature has been stunning

Thousands of helpless, suffering ears,

By his atrocious punning.

But I will have my joke on him,

Altho' to me 't is trying;

For sometime back I 've felt quite slim,

He told me I was dying.

His bill since last July is due,

And it will make him holler

To find (I tell this ENTRE NOUS),

I have n't left a dollar!

-FRANCIS SALTUS SALTUS.

67

Guneopathy

SAW a lady yesterday,

A regular M. D.,

Who 'd taken from the Faculty
Her medical degree;

And I thought, if ever I was sick,
My doctor she should be!

I pity the deluded man

Who foolishly consults
Another man, in hopes to find
Such magical results
As when a pretty woman lays
Her hand upon his pulse!

I had a strange disorder once,
A kind of chronic chill,
That all the doctors in the town,
With all their vaunted skill,
Could never cure, I'm very sure.
With powder nor with pill.

I don't know what they called it in their pompous terms of Art, Nor if they thought it mortal

In such a vital part,

I only know 't was reckoned

"Something icy round the heart!"

A lady came, her presence brought
The blood into my ears!

She took my hand-and something like
A fever now appears!

Great Galen!-I was all aglow,

Though I'd been cold for years!

DOCTOR GALL

Perhaps it is n't every case
That 's fairly in her reach,
But should I e'er be ill again,

I fervently beseech

That I may have, for life or death,

A lady for my "leech"!

-JOHN GODFREY SAXE.

Doctor Gall

SING of the organs and fibers

That ramble about in the brains;
Avaunt! ye irreverent jibers,

Or stay and be wise for your pains.
All heads were of yore on a level,

One could not tell clever from dull, Till I, like Le Sage's lame devil, Unroofed with a touch every skull.

Oh, I am the mental dissector,

I fathom the wits of you all,
Then come in a crowd to the lecture
Of craniological Gall.

The passions, or active or passive,
Exposed by my magical spells,

As busy as bees in a glass hive,

Are seen in their separate cells.

Old Momus, who wanted a casement

Whence all in the heart might be read,

Were he living, would stare with amazement
To find what he wants in the head.

There's an organ for strains amoroso,
Just under the edge of the wig,
An organ for writing but so-so,
For driving a tilbury gig;

69

An organ for boxers, for stoics,
For giving booksellers a lift,
For marching the zig-zag heroics,
And editing Jonathan Swift.

I raise in match-making a rumpus,
And Cupid his flame must impart
Henceforth with a rule and a compass,
Instead of a bow and a dart.

"Dear Madam, your eyebrow is horrid;
And Captain, too broad is your pate;
I see by that bump on your forehead
You're shockingly dull tête-a-tête.”

When practice has made my book plainer
To manhood, to age, and to youth,
I'll build, like the genius Phanor,

In London a palace of truth.
Then fibs, ah, beware how you tell 'em,
Reflect how pellucid the skull,
Whose downright sincere cerebellum
Must render all flattery null.

Your friend brings a play out at Drury, 'Tis hooted and damned in the pit; Your organ of friendship's all fury,

But what says your organ of wit? "Our laughter next time prithee stir, man, We don't pay our money to weep;

Your play must have come from the German, It set all the boxes asleep."

At first, all will be in a bustle;

The eye will, from ignorance, swerve, And some will abuse the wrong muscle, And some will adore the wrong nerve. In love should your hearts then be sporting, Your heads on one level to bring, You must go in your nightcaps a-courting, As if you were going to swing.