Poem by William Ernest Henley

In Hospital. 10. 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.

1. In Hospital. 8. Staff-Nurse: Old Style
2. Echoes. 32. O, Falmouth Is a Fine Town
3. London Voluntaries. 5. Allegro Maëstoso
4. In Hospital. 22. Pastoral
5. Ballade of the Toyokuni Colour-Print

Print

1350 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version