The Doctor

Cecil John

Old memories die hard! You take the doctor now:
He has a pleasant house here at the post,
A hospital of sorts (I'd hate to lie there),
Enough to do to pay his way-
A jolly chap, asked out to dine.
(One knows, of course, a negress keeps his house,
And those mulatto youngsters in white suits
Are something puzzling on his hands.
But then-he says he's done with Home.)
You'd think he'd clean forgot
The student dreams that lured him to this land,
The heights of science he had meant to win;
But when he heard The Cure at last was found,
The long-sought sleeping-sickness cure
(He hadn't touched the thing for thirteen years!)-
He shut himself away,
And drank himself, not quite, to death.