Poem by Arthur Conan Doyle

«Songs of the Road» (1911). 19. Darkness

A gentleman of wit and charm,
     A kindly heart, a cleanly mind,
One who was quick with hand or purse,
     To lift the burden of his kind.
A brain well balanced and mature,
     A soul that shrank from all things base,
So rode he forth that winter day,
     Complete in every mortal grace.

And then — the blunder of a horse,
     The crash upon the frozen clods,
And — Death? Ah! no such dignity,
     But Life, all twisted and at odds!
At odds in body and in soul,
     Degraded to some brutish state,
A being loathsome and malign,
     Debased, obscene, degenerate.

Pathology? The case is clear,
     The diagnosis is exact;
A bone depressed, a haemorrhage,
     The pressure on a nervous tract.
Theology? Ah, there's the rub!
     Since brain and soul together fade,
Then when the brain is dead — enough!
     Lord help us, for we need Thine aid!

1. «Songs of the Road» (1911). 26. The Orphanage
2. «Songs of the Road» (1911). 25. A Voyage
3. «The Guards Came Through» (1919). 7. Grousing
4. «Songs of the Road» (1911). 1. A Hymn of Empire
5. «Songs of the Road» (1911). 12. Bendy's Sermon

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