O DOCTOR KOCH, if you can slay
Those horrid germs that kill us,
You'll be _the_ hero of the day,
Great foe of the Bacillus!
What champion may we match with you
In all the world of fable?
St. George, who the Great Dragon slew,
The Knights of ARTHUR's Table,
E'en gallant giant-slaying JACK,
The British nursery's darling;
Or JENNER, against whom the pack
Of faddists now are snarling,
Must second fiddle play to him
Who stayed the plague of phthisis,
And plumbed a mystery more dim
And deep than that of Isis.
For what are Dragons, Laidly Worms,
And such-like mythic scourges,
Compared with microscopic germs
'Gainst which the war he urges?
Hygeia, goddess, saint, or nymph,
We trust there's no big blunder,
And hope your votary's magic lymph
May prove no nine days' wonder.
We dare not trust each pseudo-seer
Who'd powder, purge, or pill us;
But pyramids to him we'll rear
Who baffles the Bacillus.

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