WHEN modern people get together, they do not talk about the weather, as fellows used to do; but each one, in his conversation, describes some painful operation that lately he's gone through. The innocent bystander catches, while listening, disjointed snatches of talk that runs this way: "Oh, yes, I went to Dr. Sidney, and he removed my starboard kidney—his bill I've yet to pay." "The surgeon, in a boastful humor, still quotes my large, ingrowing tumor, as worst he ever saw." "When from the chloroform emergin', I clinched my fist and soaked the surgeon a dinger on the jaw." "That old Doc Faker is a wizard; the way that he cut out my gizzard was something simply fine." "Doc Chestnut says my system's rusty, and he will take his bucksaw trusty, and amputate my spine." "The doc assures me my salvation depends alone on amputation, if I would shake the gout." "I hear that Jeremiah Proctor has hired a famous eastern doctor to dig some organs out." 'Twixt them and me the gulf grows wider; alas, I am a rank outsider—I never have been hewn! When my insides are in commotion I simply mix a drastic potion, and take it with a spoon! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ARIZONA POEMS: 4. THE WINDMILLS by JOHN GOULD FLETCHER THE PRAIRIE-GRASS DIVIDING by WALT WHITMAN LYSISTRATA: HOW THE WOMEN WILL STOP WAR by ARISTOPHANES RECIPROCAL KINDNESS THE PRIMARY LAW OF NATURE by VINCENT BOURNE THE INNER TEMPLE MASQUE by WILLIAM BROWNE (1591-1643) O MAY, THY MORN by ROBERT BURNS TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 4. IN THE STONE-FLOORED WORKSHOP by EDWARD CARPENTER |