Classic Poem

I hear our Doctor's hard step by my door;
He brings a guest to look the sick folk o'er;

For great men come his surgeon-skill to see,
To learn of life from our mortality.

Who's here? A grizzled man from overseas,
Deep-browed, keen-eyed to look upon disease.

And must I lie thus solely for a show,
That they may say, “The fever fell even so;

To-morrow it will rise again,
And with it bring the coughing and the pain”?

Is there no more for us than fever-flow,
O deep-eyed, aged sir, before you go?

Beside this tale of death, no living truth,
Between your towering age, my stricken youth?

I smile up at him softly. O there lies
An answering smile in his compassionate eyes.