| I SAID when they handed me my diploma, | |
| I said to myself I will be good | |
| And wise and brave and helpful to others; | |
| I said I will carry the Christian creed | |
| Into the practice of medicine! | 5 |
| Somehow the world and the other doctors | |
| Know what’s in your heart as soon as you make | |
| This high-souled resolution. | |
| And the way of it is they starve you out. | |
| And no one comes to you but the poor. | 10 |
| And you find too late that being a doctor | |
| Is just a way of making a living. | |
| And when you are poor and have to carry | |
| The Christian creed and wife and children | |
| All on your back, it is too much! | 15 |
| That’s why I made the Elixir of Youth, | |
| Which landed me in the jail at Peoria | |
| Branded a swindler and a crook | |
| By the upright Federal Judge! | |
