The Doctor

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.