Doctor Monroe

"Dear Doctor, be clever, an' fling aff your beaver,

Come, bleed me an' blister me, dinna be slow;

I'm sick, I'm exhausted, my prospects are blasted,

An' a' driven heels o'er head, Doctor Munroe!"

"Be patient, dear fellow, you foster your fever;

Pray, what's the misfortune that troubles you so?"

"O, Doctor! I'm ruin'd, I'm ruin'd for ever—

My lass has forsaken me, Doctor Munroe!

"I meant to have married, an' tasted the pleasures,

The sweets, the enjoyments from wedlock that flow:

But she's ta'en another, an' broken my measures,

An' fairly dumfounder'd me, Doctor Munroe!

I'm fool'd, I am dover'd as dead as a herring—

Good sir, you're a man of compassion, I know;

Come, bleed me to death, then, unflinching, unerring,

Or grant me some poison, dear Doctor Monroe!"

The Doctor he flang aff his big-coat an' beaver,

He took out his lance, an' he sharpen'd it so;

No judge ever look'd more decided or graver—

"I've oft done the same, sir," says Doctor Monroe,

"For gamblers, rogues, jockeys, and desperate lovers,

But I always make charge of a hundred, or so."

The patient look'd pale, and cried out in shrill quavers,

"The devil! do you say so, sir, Doctor Monroe?"

"O yes, sir, I'm sorry there's nothing more common;

I like it—it pays—but, ere that length I go,

A man that goes mad for the love of a woman

I sometimes can cure with a lecture, or so."

"Why, thank you, sir; there spoke the man and the friend too,

Death is the last reckoner with friend or with foe,

The lecture then, first, if you please, I'll attend to;

The other, of course, you know, Doctor Monroe."

The lecture is said—How severe, keen, an' cutting,

Of love an' of wedlock, each loss an' each woe,

The patient got up—o'er the floor he went strutting,

Smil'd, caper'd, an' shook hands with Doctor Monroe.

He dresses, an' flaunts it with Bell, Sue, an' Chirsty,

But freedom an' fun chooses not to forego;

He still lives a bachelor, drinks when he's thirsty,

An' sings like a lark, an' loves Doctor Monroe!