Scarce had I mingled with this wretched band, When a thin victim seized me by the hand:-- “And art thou come?”--death heavy on his eyes-- “And art thou come to these abodes?” he cries, “Why didst thou leave the Scorpion’s dark retreat? And hither haste, a surer death to meet? Why didst thou leave thy damp, infected cell? If that was purgatory, this is hell. We too, grown weary of that horrid shade, Petitioned early for the Doctor’s aid; His aid denied, more deadly symptoms came, Weak and yet weaker, glowed the vital flame; And when disease had worn us down so low That few could tell if we were ghosts or no, And all asserted death would be our fate, Then to the Doctor we were sent, too late” Ah! rest in peace, each injured, parted shade, By cruel hands in death’s dark weeds arrayed, The days to come shall to your memory raise Piles on these shores, to spread through earth your praise. THE HESSIAN DOCTOR From Brooklyn heights a Hessian doctor came, Nor great his skill, nor greater much his fame: Fair Science never called the wretch her son, And Art disdained the stupid man to own. He on his charge the healing work begun With antmomial mixtures by the tun: Ten minutes was the time he deigned to stay, The time of grace allotted once a day: He drenched us well with bitter draughts, tis true, Nostrums from hell, and cortex from Peru: Some with his pills he sent to Pluto’s reign, And some he blistered with his flies of Spain. His Tartar doses walked their deadly round, Till the lean patient at the potion frowned, And swore that hemlock, death, or what you will, Were nonsense to the drugs that stuffed his bill. On those refusing he bestowed a kick, Or menaced vengeance with his walking stick: Here uncontrolled he exercised his trade, And grew experienced by the deaths he made. Knave though he was, yet candor must confess Not chief physician was this man of Hesse: One master o’er the murdering tribe was placed, By him the rest were honored or disgraced Once, and but once, by some strange fortune led, He came to see the dying and the dead. He came, but anger so inflamed his eye, And such a faulchion glittered on his thigh, And such a gloom his visage darkened o’er, And two such pistols in his hands he bore, That, by the gods, with such a load of steel, We thought he came to murder, not to heal. Rage in his heart, and mischief in his head, He gloomed destruction, and had smote us dead Had he so dared, but fear withheld his hand, He came, blasphemed, and turned again to land THE BENEVOLENT CAPTAIN