Part 3

All the old time Surges malignant before me; Old voices, old kisses, old songs Blossom derisive about me; While the new days Pass me in endless procession: A pageant of shadows Silently, leeringly wending On . . . and still on . . . still on!

Far in the stillness a cat Languishes loudly. A cinder Falls, and the shadows Lurch to the leap of the flame. The next man to me Turns with a moan; and the snorer, The drug like a rope at his throat, Gasps, gurgles, snorts himself free, as the night-nurse, Noiseless and strange, Her bull’s eye half-lanterned in apron, (Whispering me, ‘Are ye no sleepin’ yet?’), Passes, list-slippered and peering, Round . . . and is gone.

Sleep comes at last— Sleep full of dreams and misgivings— Broken with brutal and sordid Voices and sounds that impose on me, Ere I can wake to it, The unnatural, intolerable day.

VIII STAFF-NURSE: OLD STYLE

THE greater masters of the commonplace, REMBRANDT and good SIR WALTER—only these Could paint her all to you: experienced ease And antique liveliness and ponderous grace; The sweet old roses of her sunken face; The depth and malice of her sly, grey eyes; The broad Scots tongue that flatters, scolds, defies; The thick Scots wit that fells you like a mace. These thirty years has she been nursing here, Some of them under SYME, her hero still. Much is she worth, and even more is made of her. Patients and students hold her very dear. The doctors love her, tease her, use her skill. They say ‘The Chief’ himself is half-afraid of her.

IX LADY-PROBATIONER

SOME three, or five, or seven, and thirty years; A Roman nose; a dimpling double-chin; Dark eyes and shy that, ignorant of sin, Are yet acquainted, it would seem, with tears; A comely shape; a slim, high-coloured hand, Graced, rather oddly, with a signet ring; A bashful air, becoming everything; A well-bred silence always at command. Her plain print gown, prim cap, and bright steel chain Look out of place on her, and I remain Absorbed in her, as in a pleasant mystery. Quick, skilful, quiet, soft in speech and touch . . . ‘Do you like nursing?’ ‘Yes, Sir, very much.’ Somehow, I rather think she has a history.

X STAFF-NURSE: NEW STYLE

BLUE-EYED and bright of face but waning fast Into the sere of virginal decay, I view her as she enters, day by day, As a sweet sunset almost overpast. Kindly and calm, patrician to the last, Superbly falls her gown of sober gray, And on her chignon’s elegant array The plainest cap is somehow touched with caste. She talks BEETHOVEN; frowns disapprobation At BALZAC’S name, sighs it at ‘poor GEORGE SAND’S’; Knows that she has exceeding pretty hands; Speaks Latin with a right accentuation; And gives at need (as one who understands) Draught, counsel, diagnosis, exhortation.

XI CLINICAL

HIST? . . . Through the corridor’s echoes, Louder and nearer Comes a great shuffling of feet. Quick, every one of you, Strighten your quilts, and be decent! Here’s the Professor.

In he comes first With the bright look we know, From the broad, white brows the kind eyes Soothing yet nerving you. Here at his elbow, White-capped, white-aproned, the Nurse, Towel on arm and her inkstand Fretful with quills. Here in the ruck, anyhow, Surging along, Louts, duffers, exquisites, students, and prigs— Whiskers and foreheads, scarf-pins and spectacles— Hustles the Class! And they ring themselves Round the first bed, where the Chief (His dressers and clerks at attention), Bends in inspection already.

So shows the ring Seen from behind round a conjurer Doing his pitch in the street. High shoulders, low shoulders, broad shoulders, narrow ones, Round, square, and angular, serry and shove; While from within a voice, Gravely and weightily fluent, Sounds; and then ceases; and suddenly (Look at the stress of the shoulders!) Out of a quiver of silence, Over the hiss of the spray, Comes a low cry, and the sound Of breath quick intaken through teeth Clenched in resolve. And the Master Breaks from the crowd, and goes, Wiping his hands, To the next bed, with his pupils Flocking and whispering behind him.

Now one can see. Case Number One Sits (rather pale) with his bedclothes Stripped up, and showing his foot (Alas for God’s Image!) Swaddled in wet, white lint Brilliantly hideous with red.

XII ETCHING

TWO and thirty is the ploughman. He’s a man of gallant inches, And his hair is close and curly, And his beard; But his face is wan and sunken, And his eyes are large and brilliant, And his shoulder-blades are sharp, And his knees.

He is weak of wits, religious, Full of sentiment and yearning, Gentle, faded—with a cough And a snore. When his wife (who was a widow, And is many years his elder) Fails to write, and that is always, He desponds.

Let his melancholy wander, And he’ll tell you pretty stories Of the women that have wooed him Long ago; Or he’ll sing of bonnie lasses Keeping sheep among the heather, With a crackling, hackling click In his voice.

XIII CASUALTY

AS with varnish red and glistening Dripped his hair; his feet looked rigid; Raised, he settled stiffly sideways: You could see his hurts were spinal.

He had fallen from an engine, And been dragged along the metals. 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.