Read at the Celebration of the Seventieth Birthday
of DOCTOR R. OGDEN DOREMUS, January
11th, 1894, at 241 Madison Avenue,
by LUTHER R. MARSH.
What shall be said for good Doctor Doremus?
To speak of him well, it well doth beseem us.
Not one single fault, through his seventy years,
Has ever been noticed by one of his peers.
How flawless a life, and how useful withal!
Fulfilling his duties at every call!
Come North or come South, come East or come West,
He ever is ready to work for the best.
In Chemics, the Doctor stands first on the list;
The nature, he knows, of all things that exist.
He lets loose the spirits of earth, rock or water,
And drives them through solids, cemented with mortar.
How deftly he handles the retort and decanter!
Makes lightning and thunder would scare Tam O'Shanter;
Makes feathers as heavy as lead, in a jar,
And eliminates spirits from coal and from tar.
By a touch of his finger he'll turn lead or tin
To invisible gas, and then back again;
He will set them aflame, as in the last day,
When all things are lit by the Sun's hottest ray.
With oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen,—all—
No gas can resist his imperative call—
He'll solidify, liquefy, or turn into ice;
Or all of them re-convert, back in a trice.
Amid oxides and alkalies, bromides and salts,
He makes them all dance in a chemical waltz;
And however much he with acids may play,
There's never a drop stains his pure mortal clay.
He well knows what things will affect one another;
What acts as an enemy, and what as a brother;
He feels quite at home with all chemic affinities,
And treats them respectfully, as mystic Divinities.
His wisdom is spread from far Texas to Maine;
For thousands on thousands have heard him explain
The secrets of Nature, and all her arcana,
From the youth of the Gulf, to the youth of Montana.