In the village where he married, <br />Doctor Eldebury tarried; <br />And for fourty years our people knew him well. <br />How he listered us and bled us, <br />How with calomel he fed us, <br />Only I am living now to tell. <br />Though his drugs were deadly, yet his heart was kind, <br />And with voice tuned cheerily and high, <br />It was "Up, now, my little fellow! livly's can be! <br />Come, take your medicine like a little man, <br />And you'll feel better by-and-by." <br /> <br />Count the mossy marbles in the graveyard! <br />Our old doctor and his patients, there they lie. <br />All regradless of the weather, <br />They are waiting there together, <br />For that long-sought "better by-and-by." <br /> <br />Some physicians talk in Latin; <br />Some array their wives in satin; <br />As for our old doctor, such was not his way. <br />Gleaning fees of half a dollar, <br />Would you find a learn-ed scholar <br />'Mong the mountains, riding night and day? <br />Saddle-bags behind him, on his "pale white horse," <br />To his far off patient see him fly, <br />Saying "Up, now, my little fellow! livly's can be! <br />Come, take your medicine like a little man, <br />And you'll feel better by-and-by." <br /> <br />Oh! the doses he invented! <br />Us in youth he tormented <br />With his plasters, and his powders, and his pills; <br />Water for our thirst denying, <br />Fevered though we were and dying, <br />While the cool springs wasted from the hills! <br />Yet he thought no evil, and he meant no harm: <br />We had faith--yes, hope when he came nigh <br />With his "Up, now, my little fellow! livly's can be! <br />Come, take your medicine like a little man, <br />And you'll feel better by-and-by."<br /><br />Henry Clay Work<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-old-village-doctor/
