Metrical tales, and other poems; - Electric Scotland

OBERMEIEK THE BRAVE. 265
Him wlao bravely strove to trace
To their secret lurking-place
Primal. forms of fell disease:
Him who toiled that skill might seize,
Seize and crush in very birth,
Those af&iotors of the earth.
Fevers dire and direr pest
Lay him down in honoured rest.
Mighty conqu'rors, what are ye ?
Braver than your bravest he
Ye were slow to risk your life
In the thickest of the strife ;
Ye your selfish ends to gain,
Drenched with others' blood the plain.
By the tainted sufferer's bed.
Whence the dearest kin had fled,
Whence ye would have shrunk aghast.
He, undaunted to the last,
Stood with pity in his breast
Lay him down in honoured rest.
Otto Obermeier the brave,
Striving human life
to save,
Striving if he could make less
Fellow-mortals' sore distress.
Sought the plague-infected spot.
Gazed on death and shuddered not.
Searched with patient microscope.
Purpose high, and holy hope ;
Strained with eyes and intellect
If he could perchance detect
Workings of the deadly pest
Lay him down in honoured rest.