Classic and Contemporary Poetry
A DOCTOR'S CENTURY, by SILAS WEIR MITCHELL Poet's Biography First Line: A doctor's century dead and gone! Last Line: And to the past a glad good-night. Subject(s): Healing; Physicians; Universities & Colleges; Cures; Doctors | ||||||||
READ AT THE CENTENNIAL DINNER OF THE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS OF PHILADELPHIA, 1887 A DOCTOR'S century dead and gone! Good-night to those one hundred years, To all the memories they bear Of honest help for pains or tears; To them that like St. Christopher, When North and South were sad with graves, Bore the true Christ of charity Across the battles' crimson waves. Good-night to all the shining line, Our peerage,yes, our lords of thought; Their blazonry, unspotted lives Which all the ways of honor taught. A gentler word, as proud a thought, For those who won no larger prize Than humble days well lived can win From thankful hearts and weeping eyes. Too grave my song; a lighter mood Shall bid us scan our honored roll, For jolly jesters gay and good, Who healed the flesh and charmed the soul, And took their punch, and took the jokes Would make our prudish conscience tingle, Then bore their devious lanterns home, And slept, or heard the night-bell jingle. Our Century's dead; God rest his soul! Without a doctor or a nurse, Without a "post," without a dose, He's off on Time's old rattling hearse. What sad disorder laid him out To all pathologists is dim; An intercurrent malady, Bacterium chronos, finished him! Our new-born century, pert and proud, Like some young doctor fresh from college, Disturbs our prudent age with doubts And misty might of foggy knowledge. Ah, but to come again and share The gains his calmer days shall store, For them that in a hundred years Shall see our "science grown to more," Perchance as ghosts consultant we May stand beside some fleshly fellow, And marvel what on earth he means, When this new century's old and mellow. Take then the thought that wisdom fades, That knowledge dies of newer truth, That only duty simply done Walks always with the step of youth. A grander morning floods our skies With higher aims and larger light; Give welcome to the century new, And to the past a glad good-night. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE DOCTOR WHO SITS AT THE BEDSIDE OF A RAT by JOSEPHINE MILES EL CURANDERO (THE HEALER) by RAFAEL CAMPO HER FINAL SHOW by RAFAEL CAMPO SONG FOR MY LOVER: 13. TOWARDS CURING AIDS by RAFAEL CAMPO WHAT THE BODY TOLD by RAFAEL CAMPO MEDICINE 2; FOR JOHN MURRAY by CAROLYN KIZER THE NERVE DOCTORS by THOMAS LUX DOMESDAY BOOK: DR. BURKE by EDGAR LEE MASTERS A DECANTER OF MADEIRA, AGED 86, TO GEORGE BANCROFT, AGED 86 by SILAS WEIR MITCHELL HOW THE CUMBERLAND WENT DOWN [MARCH 8, 1862] by SILAS WEIR MITCHELL |
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