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.

Long time a child, and still a child, when years
Had painted manhood on my cheek, was I,—
For yet I lived like one not born to die;
A thriftless prodigal of smiles and tears,
No hope I needed, and I knew no fears.
But sleep, though sweet, is only sleep, and waking,
I waked to sleep no more, at once o’ertaking
The vanguard of my age, with all arrears
Of duty on my back. Nor child, nor man,
Nor youth, nor sage, I find my head is grey,
For I have lost the race I never ran:
A rathe December blights my lagging May;
And still I am a child, tho’ I be old,
Time is my debtor for my years untold.