Classic Poem

A man in many a country town we know,
Professes openly with Death to wrestle;
Entering the field against the grimly foe,
Armed with a mortar and a pestle.

Yet some affirm no enemies they are;
But meet just like prize-fighters in a fair,
Who first shake hands before they box,
Then give each other plaguy knocks,
With all the love and kindness of a brother;
So (many a suffering patient saith),
Though the apothecary fights with Death,
Still they're sworn friends to one another.

A member of this Æsculapian line
Lived at Newcastle-upon-Tyne:
No man could better gild a pill,
Or make a bill,
Or mix a draught, or bleed, or blister,
Or draw a tooth out of your head,
Or chatter scandal by your bed,
Or give a clyster.

Of occupations these were quantum suff .,
Yet still he thought the list not long enough;
And therefore midwifery he chose to pin to't.
This balanced things: for if he hurled
A few score mortals from the world,
He made amends by bringing others into't.

His fame full six miles round the country ran;
In short, in reputation he was solus:
All the old women called him " a fine man! "
His name was Bolus.

Benjamin Bolus though in trade ,
(Which oftentimes will genius fetter)
Read works of fancy, it is said,
And cultivated the Belles Lettres .

And why should this be thought so odd?
Can't men have taste who cure a phthisic?
Of poetry though patron-god,
Apollo patronizes physic.

Bolus loved verse, and took so much delight in't,
That his prescriptions he resolved to write in't.

No opportunity he e'er let pass
Of writing the directions on his labels,
In dapper couplets, like Gay's Fables ,
Or rather like the lines in Hudibras .

Apothecary's verse! and where's the treason?
'Tis simply honest dealing — not a crime.
When patients swallow physic without reason,
It is but fair to give a little rhyme.

He had a patient lying at death's door,
Some three miles from the town — it might be four:
To whom one evening Bolus sent an article,
In pharmacy that's called cathartical;

And on the label of this stuff
He wrote this verse;
Which, one would think, was clear enough,
And terse: —

" When taken ,
To be well shaken. "

Next morning early Bolus rose,
And to the patient's house he goes,
Upon his pad,
Who a vile trick of stumbling had:

It was indeed a very sorry hack;
But that's of course;
For what's expected from a horse
With an apothecary on his back?
Bolus arrived, and gave a doubtful tap,
Between a single and a double rap.

Knocks of this kind
Are given by gentlemen who teach to dance;
By fiddlers and by opera singers:
One loud, and then a little one behind,
As if the knocker fell by chance
Out of their fingers.

The servant lets him in with dismal face,
Long as a courtier's out of place,
Portending some disaster;
John's countenance as rueful looked, and grim,
As if the apothecary had physic'd him,
And not his master.

" Well, how's the patient? " Bolus said.
John shook his head.
" Indeed! hum! ha! that's very odd!
He took the draught? " John gave a nod.
" Well, how? What then? Speak out, you dunce! "
" Why then, " says John, " we shook him once. "
" Shook him! how? " Bolus stammered out.
" We jolted him about. "

" Zounds! shake a patient, man? A shake wont do. "
" No, sir, and so we gave him two . "
" Two shakes! od's curse!
'Twould make the patient worse. "
" It did so, sir! and so a third we tried. "
" Well, and what then? " " Then, sir, my master died. "