 | Number Twenty |  |
II.
Years rolled on and times grew milder,
All the primitive and wilder
Human passions sank to rest;
And the public admiration
For the Doctor's innovation
Was less heartily expressed.
All the primitive and wilder
Human passions sank to rest;
And the public admiration
For the Doctor's innovation
Was less heartily expressed.
143
Men began to view with coldness
One who with such callous boldness
Could an army drug by stealth,
Careless, his designs pursuing,
How much harm he might be doing
To that army's future health.
One who with such callous boldness
Could an army drug by stealth,
Careless, his designs pursuing,
How much harm he might be doing
To that army's future health.
“How could he,” in accents fretful
Murmured they, “be thus forgetful,
Wrapped in his unscrupulous art,
That the rifle or the sabre
May be borne by men who labour
With affections of the heat?
Murmured they, “be thus forgetful,
Wrapped in his unscrupulous art,
That the rifle or the sabre
May be borne by men who labour
With affections of the heat?
“Some perchance may not recover,
All of them are bound to suffer
In the body or the mind,
More or less, from that reaction
Which narcotic stupefaction
Almost always leaves behind.”
All of them are bound to suffer
In the body or the mind,
More or less, from that reaction
Which narcotic stupefaction
Almost always leaves behind.”
So the local papers trounced him,
Crowds assembled and denounced him
Till they made their victim flinch,
Smashed his windows, broke his image
Mobbed him in an ugly scrimmage,
Threatened him with Justice Lynch.
Crowds assembled and denounced him
Till they made their victim flinch,
Smashed his windows, broke his image
Mobbed him in an ugly scrimmage,
Threatened him with Justice Lynch.
Then the conscience-stricken Doctor
Doubtful whether to be shocked or
Furious at his altered plight,
Making but a weak contention
For his devilish invention,
Gave it up and took to flight.
Doubtful whether to be shocked or
Furious at his altered plight,
144
For his devilish invention,
Gave it up and took to flight.
Fled beyond his country's border,
Entered a monastic order
For his life's remaining span;
And, from all his fellows parted,
Lingered on, a broken-hearted,
Penitent Juenemann.
Entered a monastic order
For his life's remaining span;
And, from all his fellows parted,
Lingered on, a broken-hearted,
Penitent Juenemann.
| Number Twenty | |