A CONSULTATION "IN ARTICULO."
Doctors, diplomatic doctors, mixers of the paper-pill.
Fuming, fussing, drafts discussing, o'er a dying nation,
Protocol-prescription-mongers, slow to cure, but strong to kill,
Spreading words, like blister-ointment, to allay an irritation.
Clarendon, M.D., prescribeth sedatives and cooling potion;
Le Docteur Drouyn de L'Huys to stimulants inclineth;
Hofartzt Bruck of vis naturæ medicatrix hath a notion;
Medicus Aupick, looking wise, doth nothing, but defineth.
Wrangle, jangle, argol-bargol, still the Doctors diplomatic
But differ to agree again, and but agree to differ,
While the poor old Turk, their patient, groweth more and more asthmatic,
And his eye gets dim and dimmer, and his limbs wax stiff and stiffer.
While behind the patient's curtain, with cautious step, yet certain,
The Azrael who that poor old Turk hath threatened many a year—
A Calmuc skull, with vulture claw, and waist like spider girt in—
To choke death's rattle, and do battle for the body, doth appear.
The Doctors argue with him, and he patiently doth listen;
He treateth them to reasons, and they treat him to replies;
But the old Turk's eyeballs glaze, and the Calmuc eyeholes glisten;—
And while the Doctors differ the presumptuous patient dies!