I went to a modern doctor to learn what it was was wrong.
I'd lately been off my fodder, and life was no more a song.
He felt of my pulse as they all do, he gazed at my outstretched tongue;
He took off my coat and weskit and harked at each wheezing lung.
He fed me a small glass penstalk with figures upon the side,
And this was his final verdict when all of my marks he'd spied:

"Do you eat fried eggs? Then quit it.
You don't? Then hurry and eat 'em,
Along with some hay that was cut in May—
There are no other foods to beat 'em.
Do you walk? Then stop instanter—
For exercise will not do
For people with whom it doesn't agree—
And this is the rule for you:
Just quit whatever you do do
And begin whatever you don't;
For what you don't do may agree with you
As whatever you do do don't."

Yea, thus saith the modern doctor, "Tradition be double durned!
What the oldsters knew was nothing compared to the things we've learned.
There's nothing in this or that thing that's certain in every case
Any more than a single bonnet's becoming to every face.
It's all in the diagnosis that tells us the patient's fix—
The modern who knows his business is up to a host of tricks.

Do you eat roast pork? Then stop it.
You don't? Then get after it quickly.
For the long-eared ass gives the laugh to grass
And delights in the weed that's prickly.
Do you sleep with the windows open?
Then batten them good and tight
And swallow the same old fetid air
Through all of the snoozesome night.
Just quit whatever you do do
And do whatever you don't;
For what you don't do may agree with you
As whatever you do do don't.

Have e'er you seen the Pixies, the folk not blest or banned? 
They walk upon the waters, they sail upon the land, 
They make the green grass greener where'er their footsteps fall, 
The wildest hind in the forest comes at their call. 

They steal from bolted linneys, they milk the kye at grass, 
The maids are kissed a-milking, and no one hears them pass. 
They flit from byre to stable and ride unbroken foals, 
They seek out human lovers to win them souls. 

The Pixies know no sorrow, the Pixies feel no fear,
They take no care for harvest or seedtime of the year; 
Age lays no finger on them, the reaper time goes by 
The Pixies, they who change not, grow old or die.

The Pixies, though they love us, behold us pass away,
And are not sad for flowers they gathered yesterday, 
To-day has crimson foxglove, if purple hose-in-hose 
Withered last night. To-morrow will have its rose.