"Tuba mirum spargens sonum."
_Dies Irae._
[The Stethoscope, as most, probably, of our readers are aware, is a
short, straight, wooden tube, shaped like a small post-horn. By means of
it, the medical man can listen to the sounds which accompany the
movements of the lungs and heart; and as certain murmurs accompany the
healthy action of these organs, and certain others mark their diseased
condition, an experienced physician can readily discover not only the
extent, but also the nature of the distemper which afflicts his patient,
and foretell more or less accurately the fate of the latter.
The Stethoscope has long ceased to excite merely professional interest.
There are few families to whom it has not proved an object of horror and
the saddest remembrance, as connected with the loss of dear relatives,
though it is but a revealer, not a producer of physical suffering.
As an instrument on which the hopes and fears, and one may also say the
destinies of mankind, so largely hang, it appears to present a fit
subject for poetic treatment. How far the present attempt to carry out
this idea is successful, the reader must determine.]
STETHOSCOPE! thou simple tube,
Clarion of the yawning tomb,
Unto me thou seem'st to be
A very trump of doom.
Wielding thee, the grave physician
By the trembling patient stands,
Like some deftly skilled musician;
Strange! the trumpet in his hands.
Whilst the sufferer's eyeball glistens
Full of hope and full of fear,
Quietly he bends and listens
With his quick, accustomed ear--
Waiteth until thou shalt tell
Tidings of the war within:
In the battle and the strife,
Is it death, or is it life,
That the fought-for prize shall win?
Then thou whisperest in his ear
Words which only he can hear--
Words of wo and words of cheer.
Jubilates thou hast sounded,
Wild exulting songs of gladness;
Misereres have abounded
Of unutterable sadness.
Sometimes may thy tones impart,
Comfort to the sad at heart;
Oftener when thy lips have spoken,
Eyes have wept, and hearts have broken.
Calm and grave physician, thou
Art like a crowned KING;
Though there is not round thy brow
A bauble golden ring,
As a Czar of many lands,
Life and Death are in thy hands.
Sceptre-like, that Stethoscope
Seemeth in thy hands to wave:
As it points, thy subject goeth
Downwards to the silent grave;
Or thy kingly power to save
Lifts him from a bed of pain,
Breaks his weary bondage-chain,
And bids him be a man again.
Like a PRIEST beside the altar
Bleeding victims sacrificing,
Thou dost stand, and dost not falter
Whatsoe'er their agonising:
Death lifts up his dooming finger,
And the Flamen may not linger!
PROPHET art thou, wise physician,
Down the future calmly gazing,
Heeding not the strange amazing
Features of the ghastly vision.
Float around thee shadowy crowds,
Living shapes in coming shrouds;--
Brides with babes, in dark graves sleeping
That still sleep which knows no waking;
Eyes all bright, grown dim with weeping;
Hearts all joy, with anguish breaking;
Stalwart men to dust degraded;
Maiden charms by worms invades;
Cradle songs as funeral hymns;
Mould'ring bones for living limbs;
Stately looks, and angel faces,
Loving smiles, and winning graces,
Turned to skulls with dead grimaces.
All the future, like a scroll,
Opening out, that it may show,
Like the ancient Prophet's roll,
Mourning, lamentation, anguish,
Grief, and every form of wo.
On a couch with kind gifts laden,
Flowers around her, books beside her,
Knowing not what shall betide her,
Languishes a gentle maiden.
Cold and glassy is her bright eye,
Hectic red her hollow cheek,
Tangled the neglected ringlets,
Wan the body, thin and weak;
Like thick cords, the swelling blue veins
Shine through the transparent skin;
Day by day some fiercer new pains
Vex without, or war within:
Yet she counts it but a passing,
Transient, accidental thing;
Were the summer only here,
It would healing bring!
And with many a fond deceit
Tries she thus her fears to cheat:
"When the cowslip's early bloom
Quite hath lost its rich perfume;
When the violet's fragrant breath
Tasted have the lips of death;
When the snowdrop long hath died,
And the primrose at its side
In its grave is sleeping;
When the lilies all are over,
And amongst the scented clover
Merry lambs are leaping;
When the swallow's voice is ringing
Through the echoing azure dome,
Saying, 'From my far-off home
I have come, my wild way winging
O'er the waves, that I might tell,
As of old, I love ye well.
Hark! I sound my silver bell;
All the happy birds are singing
From each throat
A merry note,
Welcome to my coming bringing.'
When that happy time shall be,
From all pain and anguish free,
I shall join you, full of life and full of glee."
Then, thou fearful Stethoscope!
Thou dost seem thy lips to ope,
Saying, "Bid farewell to hope:
I foretell thee days of gloom,
I pronounce thy note of doom--
Make thee ready for the tomb!
Cease thy weeping, tears avail not,
Pray to God thy courage fail not.
He who knoweth no repenting,
Sympathy or sad relenting,
Will not heed thy sore lamenting--
Death, who soon will be thy guide
To his couch, will hold thee fast;
As a lover at thy side
Will be with thee to the last,
Longing for thy latest gasp,
When within his iron grasp
As his bride he will thee clasp."
Shifts the scene. The Earth is sleeping,
With her weary eyelids closed,
Hushed by darkness into slumber;
Whilst in burning ranks disposed,
High above, in countless number,
All the heavens, in radiance steeping,
Watch and ward
And loving guard
O'er her rest the stars are keeping.
Often has the turret-chime
Of the hasty flight of time
Warning utterance given;
And the stars are growing dim
On the gray horizon's rim,
In the dawning light of heaven.
But there sits, the Bear out-tiring,
As if no repose requiring,
One pale youth, all unattending
To the hour; with bright eye bending
O'er the loved and honoured pages,
Where are writ the words of sages,
And the heroic deeds and thoughts of far distant ages.
Closed the book,
With gladsome look
Still he sits and visions weaveth.
Fancy with her wiles deceiveth;
Days to come with glory gildeth;
And though all is bleak and bare,
With perversest labour buildeth
Wondrous castles in the air.
He who shall possess each palace,
Fortune has for him no malice,
Only countless joys in store:
Over rim,
And mantling brim,
His full cup of life shall pour.
Whilst he dreams,
The future seems
Like the present spread before him:
Nought to fear him,
All to cheer him,
Coming greatness gathers o'er him;
And into the ear of Night
Thus he tells his visions bright:--
"I shall be a glorious Poet!
All the wond'ring world shall know it,
Listening to melodious hymning;
I shall write immortal songs.
"I shall be a Painter limning
Pictures that shall never fade;
Round the scenes I have portrayed
Shall be gathered gazing throngs:
Mine shall be a Titian's palette!
"I shall wield a Phidias' mallet!
Stone shall grow to life before me,
Looks of love shall hover o'er me,
Beauty shall in heart adore me
That I make her charms immortal.
Now my foot is on the portal
Of the house of Fame:
Soon her trumpet shall proclaim
Even this now unhonoured name,
And the doings of this hand
Shall be known in every land.
"Music! my bewitching pen
Shall enchant the souls of men.
Aria, fugue, and strange sonata,
Opera, and gay cantata,
Through my brain,
In linked train,
Hark! I hear them winding go,
Now with half-hushed whisper stealing,
Now in full-voiced accent pealing,
Ringing loud, and murmuring low.
Scarcely can I now refrain,
Whilst these blessed notes remain,
From pouring forth one undying angel-strain.
"Eloquence! my lips shall speak
As no living lips have spoken--
Advocate the poor and weak,
Plead the cause of the heart-broken;
Listening senates shall be still,
I shall wield them at my will,
And this little tongue, the earth
With its burning words shall fill.
"Ye stars which bloom like flowers on high,
Ye flowers which are the stars of earth,
Ye rocks that deep in darkness lie,
Ye seas that with a loving eye
Gaze upwards on the azure sky,
Ye waves that leap with mirth;
Ye elements in constant strife,
Ye creatures full of bounding life:
I shall unfold the hidden laws,
And each unthought-of wondrous cause,
That waked ye into birth.
A high-priest I, by Nature taught
Her mysteries to reveal:
The secrets that she long hath sought
In darkness to conceal
Shall have their mantle rent away,
And stand uncovered to the light of day.
O Newton! thou and I shall be
Twin brothers then!
Together link'd, our names shall sound
Upon the lips of men."
Like the sullen heavy boom
Of a signal gun at sea,
When athwart the gathering gloom,
Awful rocks are seen to loom
Frowning on the lee;
Like the muffled kettle-drum,
With the measured tread,
And the wailing trumpet's hum,
Telling that a soldier's dead;
Like the deep cathedral bell
Tolling forth its doleful knell,
Saying, "Now the strife is o'er,
Death hath won a victim more"--
So, thou doleful Stethoscope!
Thou dost seem to say,
"Hope thou on against all hope,
Dream thy life away:
Little is there now to spend;
And that little's near an end.
Saddest sign of thy condition
is thy bounding wild ambition;
Only dying eyes can gaze on so bright a vision.
Ere the spring again is here,
Low shall be thy head,
Vainly shall thy mother dear,
Strive her breaking heart to cheer,
Vainly strive to hide the tear
Oft in silence shed.
Pangs and pains are drawing near,
To plant with thorns thy bed:
Lo! they come, a ghastly troop,
Like fierce vultures from afar;
Where the bleeding quarry is,
There the eagles gathered are!
Ague chill, and fever burning,
Soon away, but swift returning,
In unceasing alternation;
Cold and clammy perspiration,
Heart with sickening palpitation,
Panting, heaving respiration;
Aching brow, and wasted limb,
Troubled brain, and vision dim,
Hollow cough like dooming knell
Saying, 'Bid the world farewell!'
Parched lips, and quenchless thirst,
Every thing as if accurst;
Nothing to the senses grateful;
All things to the eye grown hateful;
Flowers without the least perfume;
Gone from every thing its bloom;
Music but an idle jangling;
Sweetest tongues but weary wrangling;
Books, which were most dearly cherished,
Come to be, each one, disrelished;
Clearest plans grown all confusion;
Kindest friends but an intrusion:
Weary day, and weary night--
Weary night, and weary day;
Would God it were the morning light!
Would God the light were pass'd away!
And when all is dark and dreary,
And thou art all worn and weary,
When thy heart is sad and cheerless,
And thine eyes are seldom tearless,
When thy very soul is weak,
Satan shall his victim seek.
Day by day he will be by thee,
Night by night will hover nigh thee,
With accursed wiles will try thee,
Soul and spirit seek to buy thee.
Faithfully he'll keep his tryst,
Tell thee that there is no Christ,
No long-suffering gracious Father,
But an angry tyrant rather;
No benignant Holy Spirit,
Nor a heaven to inherit,
Only darkness, desolation,
Hopelessness of thy salvation,
And at best annihilation.
"God with his great power defend thee!
Christ with his great love attend thee!
May the blessed Spirit lend thee
Strength to bear, and all needful succour send thee!"
Close we here. My eyes behold,
As upon a sculpture old,
Life all warm and Death all cold
Struggling which alone shall hold--
Sign of wo, or sign of hope!--
To his lips the Stethoscope.
But the strife at length is past,
They have made a truce at last,
And the settling die is cast.
Life shall sometimes sound a blast,
But it shall be but "Tantivy,"
Like a hurrying war reveillie,
Or the hasty notes that levy
Eager horse, and man, and hound,
On an autumn morn,
When the sheaves are off the ground,
And the echoing bugle-horn
Sends them racing o'er the scanty stubble corn.
But when I a-hunting go,
I, King Death,
I that funeral trump shall blow
With no bated breath.
Long drawn out, and deep and slow
Shall the wailing music go;
Winding horn shall presage meet
Be of coming winding-sheet,
And all living men shall know
That beyond the gates of gloom,
In my mansions of the tomb,
I for every one keep room,
And shall hold and house them all, till the very
Day of Doom.