Poem At The Centennial Anniversary Dinner Of The Massachusetts Medical Society, June 8, 1881

Three paths there be where Learning's favored sons,     Trained in the schools which hold her favored ones,     Follow their several stars with separate aim;     Each has its honors, each its special claim.     Bred in the fruitful cradle of the East,     First, as of oldest lineage, comes the Priest;     The Lawyer next, in wordy conflict strong,     Full armed to battle for the right, - or wrong;     Last, he whose calling finds its voice in deeds,     Frail Nature's helper in her sharpest needs.     Each has his gifts, his losses and his gains,     Each his own share of pleasures and of pains;     No life-long aim with steadfast eye pursued     Finds a smooth pathway all with roses strewed;     Trouble belongs to man of woman born, -     Tread where he may, his foot will find its thorn.     Of all the guests at life's perennial feast,     Who of her children sits above the Priest?     For him the broidered robe, the carven seat,     Pride at his beck, and beauty at his feet,     For him the incense fumes, the wine is poured,     Himself a God, adoring and adored!     His the first welcome when our hearts rejoice,     His in our dying ear the latest voice,     Font, altar, grave, his steps on all attend,     Our staff, our stay, our all but heavenly friend!     Where is the meddling hand that dares to probe     The secret grief beneath his sable robe?     How grave his port! how every gesture tells     Here truth abides, here peace forever dwells;     Vex not his lofty soul with comments vain;     Faith asks no questions; silence, ye profane!     Alas! too oft while all is calm without     The stormy spirit wars with endless doubt;     This is the mocking spectre, scarce concealed     Behind tradition's bruised and battered shield.     He sees the sleepless critic, age by age,     Scrawl his new readings on the hallowed page,     The wondrous deeds that priests and prophets saw     Dissolved in legend, crystallized in law,     And on the soil where saints and martyrs trod     Altars new builded to the Unknown God;     His shrines imperilled, his evangels torn, -     He dares not limp, but ah! how sharp his thorn!     Yet while God's herald questions as he reads     The outworn dogmas of his ancient creeds,     Drops from his ritual the exploded verse,     Blots from its page the Athanasian curse,     Though by the critic's dangerous art perplexed,     His holy life is Heaven's unquestioned text;     That shining guidance doubt can never mar, -     The pillar's flame, the light of Bethlehem's star!     Strong is the moral blister that will draw     Laid on the conscience of the Man of Law     Whom blindfold Justice lends her eyes to see     Truth in the scale that holds his promised fee.     What! Has not every lie its truthful side,     Its honest fraction, not to be denied?     Per contra, - ask the moralist, - in sooth     Has not a lie its share in every truth?     Then what forbids an honest man to try     To find the truth that lurks in every lie,     And just as fairly call on truth to yield     The lying fraction in its breast concealed?     So the worst rogue shall claim a ready friend     His modest virtues boldly to defend,     And he who shows the record of a saint     See himself blacker than the devil could paint.     What struggles to his captive soul belong     Who loves the right, yet combats for the wrong,     Who fights the battle he would fain refuse,     And wins, well knowing that he ought to lose,     Who speaks with glowing lips and look sincere     In spangled words that make the worse appear     The better reason; who, behind his mask,     Hides his true self and blushes at his task, -     What quips, what quillets cheat the inward scorn     That mocks such triumph? Has he not his thorn?     Yet stay thy judgment; were thy life the prize,     Thy death the forfeit, would thy cynic eyes     See fault in him who bravely dares defend     The cause forlorn, the wretch without a friend     Nay, though the rightful side is wisdom's choice,     Wrong has its rights and claims a champion's voice;     Let the strong arm be lifted for the weak,     For the dumb lips the fluent pleader speak; -     When with warm "rebel" blood our street was dyed     Who took, unawed, the hated hirelings' side?     No greener civic wreath can Adams claim,     No brighter page the youthful Quincy's name!     How blest is he who knows no meaner strife     Than Art's long battle with the foes of life!     No doubt assails him, doing still his best,     And trusting kindly Nature for the rest;     No mocking conscience tears the thin disguise     That wraps his breast, and tells him that he lies.     He comes: the languid sufferer lifts his head     And smiles a welcome from his weary bed;     He speaks: what music like the tones that tell,     "Past is the hour of danger, - all is well!"     How can he feel the petty stings of grief     Whose cheering presence always brings relief?     What ugly dreams can trouble his repose     Who yields himself to soothe another's woes?     Hour after hour the busy day has found     The good physician on his lonely round;     Mansion and hovel, low and lofty door,     He knows, his journeys every path explore, -     Where the cold blast has struck with deadly chill     The sturdy dweller on the storm-swept hill,     Where by the stagnant marsh the sickening gale     Has blanched the poisoned tenants of the vale,     Where crushed and maimed the bleeding victim lies,     Where madness raves, where melancholy sighs,     And where the solemn whisper tells too plain     That all his science, all his art, were vain.     How sweet his fireside when the day is done     And cares have vanished with the setting sun!     Evening at last its hour of respite brings     And on his couch his weary length he flings.     Soft be thy pillow, servant of mankind,     Lulled by an opiate Art could never find;     Sweet be thy slumber, - thou hast earned it well, -     Pleasant thy dreams! Clang! goes the midnight bell!     Darkness and storm! the home is far away     That waits his coming ere the break of day;     The snow-clad pines their wintry plumage toss, -     Doubtful the frozen stream his road must cross;     Deep lie the drifts, the slanted heaps have shut     The hardy woodman in his mountain hut, -     Why should thy softer frame the tempest brave?     Hast thou no life, no health, to lose or save?     Look! read the answer in his patient eyes, -     For him no other voice when suffering cries;     Deaf to the gale that all around him blows,     A feeble whisper calls him, - and he goes.     Or seek the crowded city, - summer's heat     Glares burning, blinding, in the narrow street,     Still, noisome, deadly, sleeps the envenomed air,     Unstirred the yellow flag that says "Beware!"     Tempt not thy fate, - one little moment's breath     Bears on its viewless wing the seeds of death;     Thou at whose door the gilded chariots stand,     Whose dear-bought skill unclasps the miser's hand,     Turn from thy fatal quest, nor cast away     That life so precious; let a meaner prey     Feed the destroyer's hunger; live to bless     Those happier homes that need thy care no less!     Smiling he listens; has he then a charm     Whose magic virtues peril can disarm?     No safeguard his; no amulet he wears,     Too well he knows that Nature never spares     Her truest servant, powerless to defend     From her own weapons her unshrinking friend.     He dares the fate the bravest well might shun,     Nor asks reward save only Heaven's "Well done!"     Such are the toils, the perils that he knows,     Days without rest and nights without repose,     Yet all unheeded for the love he bears     His art, his kind, whose every grief he shares.     Harder than these to know how small the part     Nature's proud empire yields to striving Art;     How, as the tide that rolls around the sphere     Laughs at the mounds that delving arms uprear, -     Spares some few roods of oozy earth, but still     Wastes and rebuilds the planet at its will,     Comes at its ordered season, night or noon,     Led by the silver magnet of the moon, -     So life's vast tide forever comes and goes,     Unchecked, resistless, as it ebbs and flows.     Hardest of all, when Art has done her best,     To find the cuckoo brooding in her nest;     The shrewd adventurer, fresh from parts unknown,     Kills off the patients Science thought her own;     Towns from a nostrum-vender get their name,     Fences and walls the cure-all drug proclaim,     Plasters and pads the willing world beguile,     Fair Lydia greets us with astringent smile,     Munchausen's fellow-countryman unlocks     His new Pandora's globule-holding box,     And as King George inquired, with puzzled grin,     "How - how the devil get the apple in?"     So we ask how, - with wonder-opening eyes, -     Such pygmy pills can hold such giant lies!     Yes, sharp the trials, stern the daily tasks     That suffering Nature from her servant asks;     His the kind office dainty menials scorn,     His path how hard, - at every step a thorn!     What does his saddening, restless slavery buy?     What save a right to live, a chance to die, -     To live companion of disease and pain,     To die by poisoned shafts untimely slain?     Answer from hoary eld, majestic shades, -     From Memphian courts, from Delphic colonnades,     Speak in the tones that Persia's despot heard     When nations treasured every golden word     The wandering echoes wafted o'er the seas,     From the far isle that held Hippocrates;     And thou, best gift that Pergamus could send     Imperial Rome, her noblest Caesar's friend,     Master of masters, whose unchallenged sway     Not bold Vesalius dared to disobey;     Ye who while prophets dreamed of dawning times     Taught your rude lessons in Salerno's rhymes,     And ye, the nearer sires, to whom we owe     The better share of all the best we know,     In every land an ever-growing train,     Since wakening Science broke her rusted chain, -     Speak from the past, and say what prize was sent     To crown the toiling years so freely spent!     List while they speak:     In life's uneven road     Our willing hands have eased our brothers' load;     One forehead smoothed, one pang of torture less,     One peaceful hour a sufferer's couch to bless,     The smile brought back to fever's parching lips,     The light restored to reason in eclipse,     Life's treasure rescued like a burning brand     Snatched from the dread destroyer's wasteful hand;     Such were our simple records day by day,     For gains like these we wore our lives away.     In toilsome paths our daily bread we sought,     But bread from heaven attending angels brought;     Pain was our teacher, speaking to the heart,     Mother of pity, nurse of pitying art;     Our lesson learned, we reached the peaceful shore     Where the pale sufferer asks our aid no more, -     These gracious words our welcome, our reward     Ye served your brothers; ye have served your Lord!