A book on Florida, "From the Hudson to the St. John's", describing a month's journey to Florida and the St. John's River was published in 1875; also, more recently, a small book on "Isthmus Transit by Chiriqui and Golfo Dulce", with a view of describing the Chiriqui mountain rib or back bone of Darien and all the executive and legislative action, with respect to the region between Panama and Nicaragua, with reference to railroad communication across the isthmus from the harbor of Chiriqui on the coast to the Pacific.
In the Hospital Review, of July, 1882, is a very striking and powerful paper on the "Tragedy of the Lena Delta", where De Long and his companions so heroically met their fate in the Arctic snows.
Below is the favorite of Dr. English among the Poems:
MY WIFE'S CRUTCHES.
Ye solemn, gaunt, ungainly crutches,
That serve her frame such slippery tricks,
Were you within my lawful clutches,
I'd fling you back in River Styx.
Ye grew beside the Boat of Charon,
In murky fens of Stygian gloom,
Nor ever, like the rod of Aaron,
Shall your grim spindles burst in bloom.
Your reeds were tuned for groans rheumatic,
And croaking sighs from gouty man;
Nor e'er shall thrill with tones ecstatic,
As did the pipes of ancient Pan.
Avaunt you, then, ye helpers dismal!
Offend my eyes and ears no more;
Go stalking back to realms abysmal
And guide the ghosts on Lethe's shore.
But see! while yet my words upbraid them,
Her crutches bud with blossoms fair,
And Patience, Love and Faith have made them
Than Aaron's rod, more rich and rare.
And hark! from out their hollows slender,
No dismal groans or sighs proceed,—
But tones of joy more sweet and tender
Than swelled from Pan's enchanted reed.