It was hopeless, and they knew it; So they covered him, and left him.

As he lay, by fits half sentient, Inarticulately moaning, With his stockinged soles protruded Stark and awkward from the blankets,

To his bed there came a woman, Stood and looked and sighed a little, And departed without speaking, As himself a few hours after.

I was told it was his sweetheart. They were on the eve of marriage. She was quiet as a statue, But her lip was grey and writhen.

 

XIV—AVE CAESER!

 

From the winter’s grey despair, From the summer’s golden languor, Death, the lover of Life, Frees us for ever.

Inevitable, silent, unseen, Everywhere always, Shadow by night and as light in the day, Signs she at last to her chosen; And, as she waves them forth, Sorrow and Joy Lay by their looks and their voices, Set down their hopes, and are made One in the dim Forever.

Into the winter’s grey delight, Into the summer’s golden dream, Holy and high and impartial, Death, the mother of Life, Mingles all men for ever.

 

XV—‘THE CHIEF’

 

His brow spreads large and placid, and his eye Is deep and bright, with steady looks that still. Soft lines of tranquil thought his face fulfill - His face at once benign and proud and shy. If envy scout, if ignorance deny, His faultless patience, his unyielding will, Beautiful gentleness and splendid skill, Innumerable gratitudes reply. His wise, rare smile is sweet with certainties, And seems in all his patients to compel Such love and faith as failure cannot quell. We hold him for another Herakles, Battling with custom, prejudice, disease, As once the son of Zeus with Death and Hell.

 

XVI—HOUSE-SURGEON

 

Exceeding tall, but built so well his height Half-disappears in flow of chest and limb; Moustache and whisker trooper-like in trim; Frank-faced, frank-eyed, frank-hearted; always bright And always punctual—morning, noon, and night; Bland as a Jesuit, sober as a hymn; Humorous, and yet without a touch of whim; Gentle and amiable, yet full of fight. His piety, though fresh and true in strain, Has not yet whitewashed up his common mood To the dead blank of his particular Schism. Sweet, unaggressive, tolerant, most humane, Wild artists like his kindly elderhood, And cultivate his mild Philistinism.

 

XVII—INTERLUDE

 

O, the fun, the fun and frolic That The Wind that Shakes the Barley Scatters through a penny-whistle Tickled with artistic fingers!

Kate the scrubber (forty summers, Stout but sportive) treads a measure, Grinning, in herself a ballet, Fixed as fate upon her audience.

Stumps are shaking, crutch-supported; Splinted fingers tap the rhythm; And a head all helmed with plasters Wags a measured approbation.

Of their mattress-life oblivious, All the patients, brisk and cheerful, Are encouraging the dancer, And applauding the musician.

Dim the gas-lights in the output Of so many ardent smokers, Full of shadow lurch the corners, And the doctor peeps and passes.

There are, maybe, some suspicions Of an alcoholic presence … ‘Tak’ a sup of this, my wumman!’ … New Year comes but once a twelvemonth.

 

XVIII—CHILDREN: PRIVATE WARD

 

Here in this dim, dull, double-bedded room, I play the father to a brace of boys, Ailing but apt for every sort of noise, Bedfast but brilliant yet with health and bloom. Roden, the Irishman, is ‘sieven past,’ Blue-eyed, snub-nosed, chubby, and fair of face. Willie’s but six, and seems to like the place, A cheerful little collier to the last. They eat, and laugh, and sing, and fight, all day; All night they sleep like dormice. See them play At Operations:- Roden, the Professor, Saws, lectures, takes the artery up, and ties; Willie, self-chloroformed, with half-shut eyes, Holding the limb and moaning—Case and Dresser.

 

XVIIII—SCRUBBER

 

She’s tall and gaunt, and in her hard, sad face With flashes of the old fun’s animation There lowers the fixed and peevish resignation Bred of a past where troubles came apace. She tells me that her husband, ere he died, Saw seven of their children pass away, And never knew the little lass at play Out on the green, in whom he’s deified. Her kin dispersed, her friends forgot and gone, All simple faith her honest Irish mind, Scolding her spoiled young saint, she labours on: Telling her dreams, taking her patients’ part, Trailing her coat sometimes: and you shall find No rougher, quainter speech, nor kinder heart.

 

XX—VISITOR

 

Her little face is like a walnut shell With wrinkling lines; her soft, white hair adorns Her withered brows in quaint, straight curls, like horns; And all about her clings an old, sweet smell. Prim is her gown and quakerlike her shawl. Well might her bonnets have been born on her. Can you conceive a Fairy Godmother The subject of a strong religious call? In snow or shine, from bed to bed she runs, All twinkling smiles and texts and pious tales, Her mittened hands, that ever give or pray, Bearing a sheaf of tracts, a bag of buns: A wee old maid that sweeps the Bridegroom’s way, Strong in a cheerful trust that never fails.

 

XXI—ROMANCE

 

‘Talk of pluck!’ pursued the Sailor, Set at euchre on his elbow, ‘I was on the wharf at Charleston, Just ashore from off the runner.

‘It was grey and dirty weather, And I heard a drum go rolling, Rub-a-dubbing in the distance, Awful dour-like and defiant.

‘In and out among the cotton, Mud, and chains, and stores, and anchors, Tramped a squad of battered scarecrows - Poor old Dixie’s bottom dollar!

‘Some had shoes, but all had rifles, Them that wasn’t bald was beardless, And the drum was rolling Dixie, And they stepped to it like men, sir!

‘Rags and tatters, belts and bayonets, On they swung, the drum a-rolling, Mum and sour. It looked like fighting, And they meant it too, by thunder!’

 

XXII—PASTORAL

 

It’s the Spring. Earth has conceived, and her bosom, Teeming with summer, is glad.

Vistas of change and adventure, Thro’ the green land The grey roads go beckoning and winding, Peopled with wains, and melodious With harness-bells jangling: Jangling and twangling rough rhythms To the slow march of the stately, great horses Whistled and shouted along.

White fleets of cloud, Argosies heavy with fruitfulness, Sail the blue peacefully. Green flame the hedgerows. Blackbirds are bugling, and white in wet winds Sway the tall poplars. Pageants of colour and fragrance, Pass the sweet meadows, and viewless Walks the mild spirit of May, Visibly blessing the world.

O, the brilliance of blossoming orchards! O, the savour and thrill of the woods, When their leafage is stirred By the flight of the Angel of Rain! Loud lows the steer; in the fallows Rooks are alert; and the brooks Gurgle and tinkle and trill. Thro’ the gloamings, Under the rare, shy stars, Boy and girl wander, Dreaming in darkness and dew.

It’s the Spring. A sprightliness feeble and squalid Wakes in the ward, and I sicken, Impotent, winter at heart.

 

XXIII—MUSIC

 

Down the quiet eve, Thro’ my window with the sunset Pipes to me a distant organ Foolish ditties;

And, as when you change Pictures in a magic lantern, Books, beds, bottles, floor, and ceiling Fade and vanish,

And I’m well once more … August flares adust and torrid, But my heart is full of April Sap and sweetness.

In the quiet eve I am loitering, longing, dreaming … Dreaming, and a distant organ Pipes me ditties.

I can see the shop, I can smell the sprinkled pavement, Where she serves—her chestnut chignon Thrills my senses!

O, the sight and scent, Wistful eve and perfumed pavement! In the distance pipes an organ … The sensation

Comes to me anew, And my spirit for a moment Thro’ the music breathes the blessed Airs of London.

 

XXIV—SUICIDE

 

Staring corpselike at the ceiling, See his harsh, unrazored features, Ghastly brown against the pillow, And his throat—so strangely bandaged!

Lack of work and lack of victuals, A debauch of smuggled whisky, And his children in the workhouse Made the world so black a riddle

That he plunged for a solution; And, although his knife was edgeless, He was sinking fast towards one, When they came, and found, and saved him.

Stupid now with shame and sorrow, In the night I hear him sobbing. But sometimes he talks a little. He has told me all his troubles.

In his broad face, tanned and bloodless, White and wild his eyeballs glisten; And his smile, occult and tragic, Yet so slavish, makes you shudder!

 

XXV—APPARITION

 

Thin-legged, thin-chested, slight unspeakably, Neat-footed and weak-fingered: in his face - Lean, large-boned, curved of beak, and touched with race, Bold-lipped, rich-tinted, mutable as the sea, The brown eyes radiant with vivacity - There shines a brilliant and romantic grace, A spirit intense and rare, with trace on trace Of passion and impudence and energy. Valiant in velvet, light in ragged luck, Most vain, most generous, sternly critical, Buffoon and poet, lover and sensualist: A deal of Ariel, just a streak of Puck, Much Antony, of Hamlet most of all, And something of the Shorter-Catechist.

 

XXVI—ANTEROTICS

 

Laughs the happy April morn Thro’ my grimy, little window, And a shaft of sunshine pushes Thro’ the shadows in the square.

Dogs are tracing thro’ the grass, Crows are cawing round the chimneys, In and out among the washing Goes the West at hide-and-seek.

Loud and cheerful clangs the bell. Here the nurses troop to breakfast. Handsome, ugly, all are women … O, the Spring—the Spring—the Spring!

 

XXVII—NOCTURN

 

At the barren heart of midnight, When the shadow shuts and opens As the loud flames pulse and flutter, I can hear a cistern leaking.

Dripping, dropping, in a rhythm, Rough, unequal, half-melodious, Like the measures aped from nature In the infancy of music;

Like the buzzing of an insect, Still, irrational, persistent … I must listen, listen, listen In a passion of attention;

Till it taps upon my heartstrings, And my very life goes dripping, Dropping, dripping, drip-drip-dropping, In the drip-drop of the cistern.

 

XXVIII—DISCHARGED

 

Carry me out Into the wind and the sunshine, Into the beautiful world.

O, the wonder, the spell of the streets! The stature and strength of the horses, The rustle and echo of footfalls, The flat roar and rattle of wheels! A swift tram floats huge on us … It’s a dream? The smell of the mud in my nostrils Blows brave—like a breath of the sea!

As of old, Ambulant, undulant drapery, Vaguery and strangely provocative, Fluttersd and beckons.