The poem
"A year to live," the Doctor said; "There is no cure," and shook his head. Ah me! I felt as good as dead. Yet quite resigned to fate was I, Thinking: "Well, since I have to die 'Twill be beneath the open sky."
And so I sought a wildsome wood Wherein a lonely cabin stood, And doomed myself to solitude, And there was no one I would see: Each morn a farmer brought to me My food and hung it on a tree.
Six eggs he brought, and milk a quart, Enough for wretches of my sort Whose life is fated to be short. At night I laid me on the round, In robe of buffalo wrapped round . . . 'Twas strange that I should sleep so sound.
The farmer man I seldom saw; I pierced my eggs and sucked them raw; Sweet mil refreshed my ravaged maw. So slowly days and weeks went by, And always I would wonder why I did not die. . . I did not die.
Thus brooding on my grievous lot The world of men I fast forgot. And in the wildwood friends I sought. The brook bright melodies would sing, The groves with feathered rapture ring, And bring me strange, sweet comforting. . . .
Then all at once I knew that I Miraculously would not die: When doctors fail let Nature try.