rubaiyat of a surgical resident

awake for the anesthetist has discontinued
halothane and nitrous oxide
and lo the servants and residents have brought
the trolley to the table side

here with a metzenbaum scissor beneath the light
a bottle of blood, a pack of instruments
and thou! bagging beside me in the operation room
and the operation room is paradise enow!

dreaming when the suction catheter was in my throat
i heard a voice in distance cry
awake my little one and go to the ward
before the iv bottle runs dry

and as the monitors beeped, the patients stood before
the theatre shouted, open the door
you know how long we have been waiting
and once departed may return no more

now the new patient reviving old desires
the thoughtful resident to ot retires
where the white hand of Hunter on the knife
Puts out, and Lister from the ground suspires

Mayo is indeed gone with all his clamps
and Billroth's sharp scissor where no one knows
but still the drip her ancient water yields
and still a oxygen bottle by the table blows

come fill the syringe and in the fever of spring
the winter blanket of hospital fling
the student of night has but a little way in the ward
and lo! the student is on the wing

the moving scalpel cuts and having cut
moves on. Nor all thy piety nor wit
shall lure it back to cancel half a millimetre
nor all thy tears heal a millimetre of it

think in this battered operation room
whose doorways are alternate night and noon
how surgeon after surgeon with his pomp
incised his hour or two and went his way

they say the lion and lizard keep
the court where sushrut gloried and incised deep
and charak the great doctor, the wild goat
stamps on his head and he lies fast asleep

ah my beloved fill the vaporizer that clears
today of past regrets and future fears
tomorrow, why tomorrow i may be
myself with yesterday's seven thousand years

and those who husbanded the crimson fluid
and those who flung it the floor like rain
alike to