Fancy a man gone rabid from a bite, Snapping to left and right, And giving tongue like one of Sebright’s hounds, Terrific sounds, The pallid neighbourhood with horror cowing, To hit the proper homœopathic mark; Now, might not “the last taste in life” of _bark_, Stop his _bow-wow-ing_? Nay, with a well-known remedy to fit him, Would he not mend, if with all proper care, He took “_a hair Of the dog that bit him_?” Picture a man--we’ll say a Dutch Meinheer-- In evident emotion, Bent o’er the bulwark of the Batavier, Owning those symptoms queer-- Some feel in a _Sick Transit_ o’er the ocean, Can anything in life be more pathetic Than when he turns to us his wretched face?-- But would it mend his case To be decillionth-dosed With something like the ghost Of an emetic? Lo! now a darkened room! Look through the dreary gloom, And see that coverlet of wildest form, Tost like the billows in a storm, Where ever and anon, with groans, emerges A ghastly head! While two impatient arms still beat the bed, Like a strong swimmer’s struggling with the surges; There Life and Death are on their battle-plain, With many a mortal ecstasy of pain-- What shall support the body in its trial, Cool the hot blood, wild dream, and parching skin, And tame the raging malady within-- A sniff of Next-to-Nothing in a phial? Oh! Doctor Hahnemann, if here I laugh, And cry together, half and half, Excuse me, ’tis a mood the subject brings, To think, whilst I have crowed like chanticleer, Perchance, from some dull eye the hopeless tear Hath gushed, with my light levity at schism, To mourn some Martyr of Empiricism! Perchance, on thy own system, I have given A pang superfluous to the pains of Sorrow, Who weeps with Memory from morn till even; Where comfort there is none to lend or borrow, Sighing to one sad strain, “She will not come again, To-morrow, nor to-morrow, nor to-morrow!” Doctor, forgive me, if I dare prescribe A rule for thee thyself, and all thy tribe, Inserting a few serious words by stealth; _Above all price of wealth The Body’s Jewel,--not for minds profane, Or hands, to tamper with in practice vain-- Like to a Woman’s Virtue is Man’s Health. A heavenly gift within a holy shrine! To be approached and touched with serious fear, By hands made pure, and hearts of faith severe, Even as the priesthood of the ONE divine!_