DEAR Doctor, whose blandly invincible pen
Has honored so of tell your great fellowmen
With your genius and virtues, who doubts it is true
That the world owes in turn, a warm tribute to you?
Wheresoever rare merit has lifted its head
From the cool country calm or the city's hotbed--
You were always the first to applaud it by name,
And to smooth for its feet the harsh pathway to fame.
Wheresoever beneath the broad rule of the sun,
By some spirit elect, a grand deed has been done
Its electrical spell like the lightning's would dart,
Though the globe lay between, to thrill first in your heart!
Philanthropist! poet! romancer! combined--
Ay! shrewd scientist too--who shall fathom your mind,
Shall plumb that strange sea to the uttermost deep,
With its vast under-tides, and its rhythmical sweep?
You have toiled in life's noon, till the hot blasting light
Blinds the eyes that would guage your soul stature aright;
But when eve comes at last, 't will be clear to mankind,
By the length of bright shadow your soul leaves behind!
