Poem by William Ernest Henley

In Hospital. 27. 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. 

1. Echoes. 12. To Me at My Fifth-Floor Window
2. In Hospital. 22. Pastoral
3. In Hospital. 12. Etching
4. Echoes. 44. If It Should Come to Be
5. Echoes. 21. We Flash across the Level

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