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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=575471" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Birth And Death Of Pain</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=575471" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">A Poem Read October Sixteenth, Mdcccxcvi, At The Commemoration Of The Fiftieth Anniversary Of The First Public Demonstration Of Surgical Anæsthesia In The Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=575471" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>FORGIVE a moment, if a friend's regret <br>Delay the task your honoring kindness set. <br>I miss one face to all men ever dear; <br>I miss one voice that all men loved to hear. <br>How glad were I to sit with you apart, <br>Could the dead master* use his higher art <br>To lift on wings of ever-lightsome mirth <br>The burdened muse above the dust of earth, <br>To stamp with jests the heavy ore of thought, <br>To give a day with proud remembrance fraught, <br>The vital pathos of that Holmes-spun art <br>Which knew so well to reach the common heart! <br>Alas! for me, for you, that fatal hour! <br>Gone is the master! Ah! not mine the power <br>To gild with jests that almost win a tear <br>The thronging memories that are with us here. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=575471" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Birth of Pain! Let centuries roll away; <br>Come back with me to nature's primal day. <br>What mighty forces pledged the dust to life! <br>What awful will decreed its silent strife, <br>Till through vast ages rose on hill and plain <br>Life's saddest voice, the birthright wail of pain! <br>The keener sense and ever-growing mind <br>Served but to add a torment twice refined, <br>As life, more tender as it grew more sweet, <br>The cruel links of sorrow found complete <br>When yearning love, to conscious pity grown, <br>Felt the mad pain-thrills that were not its own. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=575471" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">What will implacable, beyond our ken, <br>Set this stern fiat for the tribes of men? <br>This none shall 'scape who share our human fates: <br>One stern democracy of anguish waits <br>By poor men's cots, within the rich man's gates. <br>What purpose hath it? Nay, thy quest is vain: <br>Earth hath no answer. If the baffled brain <br>Cries, 'T is to warn, to punish!—ah, refrain. <br>When writhes the child beneath the surgeon's hand, <br>What soul shall hope that pain to understand? <br>Lo! Science falters o'er the hopeless task, <br>And Love and Faith in vain an answer ask, <br>When thrilling nerves demand what good is wrought <br>Where torture clogs the very source of thought. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=575471" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Lo! Mercy, ever broadening down the years, <br>Seeks but to count a lessening sum of tears. <br>The rack is gone; the torture-chamber lies <br>A sorry show for shuddering tourist eyes. <br>How useless pain both Church and State have learned <br>Since the last witch or patient martyr burned. <br>Yet still, forever, he who strove to gain <br>By swift despatch a shorter lease for pain <br>Saw the grim theatre, and 'neath his knife <br>Felt the keen torture in the quivering life. <br>A word for him who, silent, grave, serene, <br>The thought-stirred actor on that tragic scene, <br>Recorded pity through the hand of skill, <br>Heard not a cry, but, ever conscious, still <br>In mercy merciless, swift, bold, intent, <br>Felt the slow moment that in torture went <br>While 'neath his touch, as none to-day has seen, <br>In anguish shook life's agonized machine. <br>The task is o'er; the precious blood is stayed; <br>But double price the hour of tension paid. <br>A pitying hand is on the sufferer's brow— <br>'Thank God, 't is over!' Few who face me now <br>Recall this memory. Let the curtain fall; <br>Far gladder days shall know this storied hall! </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=575471" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Though Science, patient as the fruitful years, <br>Still taught our art to close some fount of tears, <br>Yet who that served this sacred home of pain <br>Could e'er have dreamed one scarce-imagined gain, <br>Or hoped a day would bring his feartful art <br>No need to steel the ever-kindly heart? </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=575471" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">So, fled the years! while haply here or there <br>Some trust delusive left the old despair; <br>Some comet thought flashed fitful through the night, <br>Prophetic promise of the coming light; <br>Then radiant morning broke, and amplet hope <br>To art and science gave illumined scope. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=575471" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">What angel bore the Christlike gift inspired! <br>What love divine with noblest courage fired <br>One eager soul that paid in bitter tears <br>For the glad helping of unnumbered fears, <br>From the strange record of creation tore <br>The sentence sad each sorrowing mother bore, <br>Struck from the roll of pangs one awful sum, <br>Made pain a dream, and suffering gently dumb! <br>Whatever triumphs still shall hold the mind, <br>Whatever gift shall yet enrich mankind, <br>Ah! here no hour shall strike through all the years, <br>No hour as sweet as when hope, doubt, and fears, <br>'Mid deeping stillness, watched one eager brain, <br>With Godlike will, decree the Death of Pain. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=575471" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">How did we thank him? Ah! no joy-bells rang, <br>No pæans greeted, and no poet sang; <br>No cannon thundered from the guarded strand <br>This mighty victory to a grateful land! <br>We took the gift so humbly, simply given, <br>And, coldly selfish—left our debt to Heaven. <br>How shall we thank him? Hush! A gladder hour <br>Has struck for him; a wiser, juster power <br>Shall know full well how fitly to reward <br>The generous soul that found the world so hard. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=575471" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Oh, fruitful Mother, you whose thronging States <br>Shall deal not vainly with man's changing fates, <br>Of free-born thought or war's heroic deeds, <br>Much have your proud hands given, but naught exceeds <br>This heaven-sent answer to the cry of prayer, <br>This priceless gift which all mankind may share. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=575471" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">A solemn hour for such as gravely pause <br>To note the process of creation's laws! <br>Ah, surely, He whose dark, unfathomed mind <br>With prescient thought the scheme of life designed, <br>Who bade His highest creature slowly rise, <br>Spurred by sad needs and lured by many a prize, <br>Saw with a God's pure joy His ripening plan, <br>His highest mercy brought by man to man.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=Silas+Weir+Mitchell">Silas Weir Mitchell</a></strong></div>