Ballads and other verses :: :: University of Virginia Library

Here's a face with many a furrow,—
John Brown's, of Edinboro':
Doctor John his cronies call him.
Oh, let nothing ill befall him,
Nothing cross his open door
But what bounteous fortunes pour!

Come! a health to that John Brown
Who, in Edinboro' town,
Practises for everybody,
Pay or no pay. There 's no shoddy
In his sterling-fine condition,
He is such “a good physician.”

Give another stalwart health
To him who does grand things by stealth.
Him you'll never find a-sleeping
When there 's Want or Sorrow weeping:

When there 's “something to be done,”
Straight to Rutland Street folks run.

Here 's a forehead without frown,
Signed and countersigned John Brown.
What a brain! itself 's a bumper:
Did you ever see a plumper,—
One more full of strength and kindness,
One for faults more prone to blindness;
Written so with love all over,
Like a hillock thick with clover,—
Like that dome, when Christmas comes,
Stuffed with everlasting plums?

Here 's John Brown engraved before ye:
Here 's a head that tells a story!
Spectacles on nose,—d' ye mind 'em?—
And a pair of eyes behind 'em
Throw such light on this old planet,
All your Tyndalls could not span it.

Come! a rouse to Doctor John,
Including Jock, his brawny son;
Including every dog he owns,

And dear old Rab,—Heaven keep his bones!
For, when the Doctor's sight grows dark,
That dog will give a kindly bark,
And lift his head once more to feel
A friendly arm around him steal,
And though in ghost-land, far away,
Where dogs (who knows?) are all at play,
Will start to hear his Scottish name,
And lick the hand that gave him fame.