Home ⇒ 📌Edgar Lee Masters ⇒ Dr. Siegfried Iseman
Dr. Siegfried Iseman
I said when they handed me my diploma,
I said to myself I will be good
And wise and brave and helpful to others;
I said I will carry the Christian creed
Into the practice of medicine!
Somehow the world and the other doctors
Know what’s in your heart as soon as you make
This high-soured resolution.
And the way of it is they starve you out.
And no one comes to you but the poor.
And you find too late that being a doctor
Is just a way of making a living.
And when you are poor and have to carry
The Christian creed and wife and children
All on your back, it is too much!
That’s why I made the Elixir of Youth,
Which landed me in the jail at Peoria
Branded a swindler and a crook
By the upright Federal Judge!
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- Ida Chicken After I had attended lectures At our Chautauqua, and studied French For twenty years, committing the grammar Almost by heart, I thought I’d take a trip to Paris To give my culture a final polish. So I went to Peoria for a passport (Thomas Rhodes was on the train that morning.) And there the clerk […]...
- Jack McGuire They would have lynched me Had I not been secretly hurried away To the jail at Peoria. And yet I was going peacefully home, Carrying my jug, a little drunk, When Logan, the marshal, halted me, Called me a drunken hound and shook me, And, when I cursed him for it, struck me With that […]...
- Send Round the Hat Now this is the creed from the Book of the Bush – Should be simple and plain to a dunce: “If a man’s in a hole you must pass round the hat – Were he jail-bird or gentleman once.”...
- Aner Clute Over and over they used to ask me, While buying the wine or the beer, In Peoria first, and later in Chicago, Denver, Frisco, New York, wherever I lived, How I happened to lead the life, And what was the start of it. Well, I told them a silk dress, And a promise of marriage […]...
- Henry Phipps I was the Sunday school superintendent, The dummy president of the wagon works And the canning factory, Acting for Thomas Rhodes and the banking clique; My son the cashier of the bank, Wedded to Rhodes’ daughter, My week day spent in making money, My Sundays at church and in prayer. In everything a cog in […]...
- Penniwit, the Artist I lost my patronage in Spoon River From trying to put my mind in the camera To catch the soul of the person. The very best picture I ever took Was of Judge Somers, attorney at law. He sat upright and had me pause Till he got his cross-eye straight. Then when he was ready […]...
- The Batchelors Song Like a Dog with a bottle, fast ti’d to his tail, Like Vermin in a trap, or a Thief in a Jail, Or like a Tory in a Bog, Or an Ape with a Clog: Such is the man, who when he might go free, Does his liberty loose, For a Matrimony noose, And sels […]...
- Knowlt Hoheimer I was the first fruits of the battle of Missionary Ridge. When I felt the bullet enter my heart I wished I had staid at home and gone to jail For stealing the hogs of Curl Trenary, Instead of running away and joining the army, Rather a thousand times the county jail Than to lie […]...
- The Judgement The Judge looked down, his face was grim, He scratched his ear; The gangster’s moll looked up at him With eyes of fear. She thought: ‘This guy in velvet gown, With balding pate, Who now on me is looking down, Can seal my fate.’ The Judge thought: ‘Fifteen years or ten I might decree. Just […]...
- Sonnet I NOR judge me light, tho’ light at times I seem, And lightly in the stress of fortune bear The innumerable flaws of changeful care – Nor judge me light for this, nor rashly deem (Office forbid to mortals, kept supreme And separate the prerogative of God!) That seaman idle who is borne abroad To the […]...
- My Trinity For all good friends who care to read, Here let me lyre my living creed. . . One: you may deem me Pacifist, For I’ve no sympathy with strife. Like hell I hate the iron fist, And shun the battle-ground of life. The hope of peace is dear to me, And I to Christian faith […]...
- An Epitaph On Sr John Walter, Lord Cheife Baron Farewell Example, Living Rule farewell; Whose practise shew’d goodness was possible, Who reach’d the full outstretch’d perfection Of Man, of Lawyer, and of Christian. Suppose a Man more streight than Reason is, Whose grounded Habit could not tread amisse Though Reason slepd; a Man who still esteem’d His wife his Bone; who still his children […]...
- Carry On It’s easy to fight when everything’s right, And you’re mad with the thrill and the glory; It’s easy to cheer when victory’s near, And wallow in fields that are gory. It’s a different song when everything’s wrong, When you’re feeling infernally mortal; When it’s ten against one, and hope there is none, Buck up, little […]...
- To Mr James Scrymgeour, Dundee Success to James Scrymgeour, He’s a very good man, And to gainsay it, There’s few people can; Because he makes the hearts Of the poor o’erjoyed By trying to find work for them When they’re unemployed. And to their complaints He has always an attentive ear, And ever ready to help them When unto him […]...
- Onion Days MRS. GABRIELLE GIOVANNITTI comes along Peoria Street Every morning at nine o’clock With kindling wood piled on top of her head, her eyes Looking straight ahead to find the way for her old feet. Her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Pietro Giovannitti, whose Husband was killed in a tunnel explosion through The negligence of a fellow-servant, Works ten […]...
- The Laws of God, The Laws of Man The laws of God, the laws of man, He may keep that will and can; Not I: let God and man decree Laws for themselves and not for me; And if my ways are not as theirs Let them mind their own affairs. Their deeds I judge and much condemn, Yet when did I make […]...
- Colonel Martin I The Colonel went out sailing, He spoke with Turk and Jew, With Christian and with Infidel, For all tongues he knew. ‘O what’s a wifeless man?’ said he, And he came sailing home. He rose the latch and went upstairs And found an empty room. The Colonel went out sailing. II ‘I kept her […]...
- Barney Hainsfeather If the excursion train to Peoria Had just been wrecked, I might have escaped with my life Certainly I should have escaped this place. But as it was burned as well, they mistook me For John Allen who was sent to the Hebrew Cemetery At Chicago, And John for me, so I lie here. It […]...
- A Carol Our Lord Who did the Ox command To kneel to Judah’s King, He binds His frost upon the land To ripen it for Spring To ripen it for Spring, good sirs, According to His Word. Which well must be as ye can see And who shall judge the Lord? When we poor fenmen skate the […]...
- Psalm 82 God the supreme Governor; or, Magistrates warned. Among th’ assemblies of the great A greater Ruler takes his seat; The God of heav’n, as Judge, surveys Those gods on earth, and all their ways. Why will ye, then, frame wicked laws? Or why support th’ unrighteous cause? When will ye once defend the poor, That […]...
- Psalm 07 Aug. 14. 1653. Upon The Words Of Chush The Benjamite Against Him. Lord my God to thee I flie Save me and secure me under Thy protection while I crie Least as a Lion (and no wonder) He hast to tear my Soul asunder Tearing and no rescue nigh. Lord my God if I have […]...
- Ossawatomie I DON’T know how he came, Shambling, dark, and strong. He stood in the city and told men: My people are fools, my people are young and strong, my people must learn, my people are terrible workers and fighters. Always he kept on asking: Where did that blood come from? They said: You for the […]...
- Super Samson Simpson I am Super Samson Simpson, I’m superlatively strong, I like to carry elephants, I do it all day long, I pick up half a dozen And hoist them in the air, It’s really somewhat simple, For I have strength to spare. My muscles are enormous, They bulge from top to toe, And when I carry […]...
- The Haunted Oak Pray why are you so bare, so bare, Oh, bough of the old oak-tree; And why, when I go through the shade you throw, Runs a shudder over me? My leaves were green as the best, I trow, And sap ran free in my veins, But I say in the moonlight dim and weird A […]...
- The Gamblers Life’s a jail where men have common lot. Gaunt the one who has, and who has not. All our treasures neither less nor more, Bread alone comes thro’ the guarded door. Cards are foolish in this jail, I think, Yet they play for shoes, for drabs and drink. She, my lawless, sharp-tongued gypsy maid Will […]...
- The Wreck of the Golfer It was the Bondi golfing man Drove off from the golf house tee, And he had taken his little daughter To bear him company. “Oh, Father, why do you swing the club And flourish it such a lot?” “You watch it fly o’er the fences high!” And he tried with a brassey shot. “Oh, Father, […]...
- Ye Flags of Picadilly Ye flags of Piccadilly, Where I posted up and down, And wished myself so often Well away from you and town Are the people walking quietly And steady on their feet, Cabs and omnibuses plying Just as usual in the street? Do the houses look as upright As of old they used to be, And […]...
- Rosie Roberts I was sick, but more than that, I was mad At the crooked police, and the crooked game of life. So I wrote to the Chief of Police at Peoria: “I am here in my girlhood home in Spoon River, Gradually wasting away. But come and take me, I killed the son Of the merchant […]...
- It All Will Come Out Right Whatever is a cruel wrong, Whatever is unjust, The honest years that speed along Will trample in the dust. In restless youth I railed at fate With all my puny might, But now I know if I but wait It all will come out right. Though Vice may don the judge’s gown And play the […]...
- Hymn 35 part 2 Truth, sincerity, etc. Phil. 4:8. Let those who bear the Christian name Their holy vows fulfil; The saints, the followers of the Lamb, Are men of honor still. True to the solemn oaths they take, Though to their hurt they swear; Constant and just to all they speak, For God and angels hear. Still with […]...
- Canis Major The great Overdog That heavenly beast With a star in one eye Gives a leap in the east. He dances upright All the way to the west And never once drops On his forefeet to rest. I’m a poor underdog, But to-night I will bark With the great Overdog That romps through the dark....
- Come Gather Round Me, Parnellites Come gather round me, Parnellites, And praise our chosen man; Stand upright on your legs awhile, Stand upright while you can, For soon we lie where he is laid, And he is underground; Come fill up all those glasses And pass the bottle round. And here’s a cogent reason, And I have many more, He […]...
- Isa Nutter Doc Meyers said I had satyriasis, And Doc Hill called it leucaemia But I know what brought me here: I was sixty-four but strong as a man Of thirty-five or forty. And it wasn’t writing a letter a day, And it wasn’t late hours seven nights a week, And it wasn’t the strain of thinking […]...
- On The Death Of A Favourite Old Spaniel And they have drown’d thee then at last! poor Phillis! The burthen of old age was heavy on thee. And yet thou should’st have lived! what tho’ thine eye Was dim, and watch’d no more with eager joy The wonted call that on thy dull sense sunk With fruitless repetition, the warm Sun Would still […]...
- Psalm 9 part 1 Wrath and mercy from the judgment-seat. With my whole heart I’ll raise my song, Thy wonders I’ll proclaim; Thou, sovereign Judge of right and wrong, Wilt put my foes to shame. I’ll sing thy majesty and grace; My God prepares his throne To judge the world in righteousness, And make his vengeance known. Then shall […]...
- Homer Clapp Often Aner Clute at the gate Refused me the parting kiss, Saying we should be engaged before that; And just with a distant clasp of the hand She bade me good-night, as I brought her home From the skating rink or the revival. No sooner did my departing footsteps die away Than Lucius Atherton, (So […]...
- The Late Sir John Ogilvy Alas! Sir John Ogilvy is dead, aged eighty-seven, But I hope his soul is now in heaven; For he was a generous-hearted gentleman I am sure, And, in particular, very kind unto the poor. He was a Christian gentleman in every degree, And, for many years, was an M. P. for Bonnie Dundee, And, while […]...
- Felix Schmidt It was only a little house of two rooms Almost like a child’s play-house With scarce five acres of ground around it; And I had so many children to feed And school and clothe, and a wife who was sick From bearing children. One day lawyer Whitney came along And proved to me that Christian […]...
- Gentlmen-Rankers To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned, To my brethren in their sorrow overseas, Sings a gentleman of England cleanly bred, machinely crammed, And a trooper of the Empress, if you please. Yea, a trooper of the forces who has run his own six horses, And faith he went […]...
- "In re a Gentleman, One" We see it each day in the paper, And know that there’s mischief in store; That some unprofessional caper Has landed a shark on the shore. We know there’ll be plenty of trouble Before they get through with the fun, Because he’s been coming the double On clients, has “Gentleman, One”. Alas for the gallant […]...