 | Romance and revery |  |
188
IN A HOSPITAL.
I cannot move among these mournful halls
Where many a white-lipped sufferer has lain,
Where life is one stern monotone of pain,
Jarred only by death's ghastlier intervals,
But some new gradual sense my soul enthralls
And bids me hold the ironical disdain
Born of the pessimist for wildly vain,
Like a rash curse that recks not how it falls.
Where many a white-lipped sufferer has lain,
Where life is one stern monotone of pain,
Jarred only by death's ghastlier intervals,
But some new gradual sense my soul enthralls
And bids me hold the ironical disdain
Born of the pessimist for wildly vain,
Like a rash curse that recks not how it falls.
For though the old baffling question fronts me here
Of why such piteous woes at all should be,—
Of why fate's bitter laws thus bruise and ban,
Ah, still one realization, fair and clear,
Towers up in monumental sanctity—
The ennobling sympathy of man for man!
Of why such piteous woes at all should be,—
Of why fate's bitter laws thus bruise and ban,
Ah, still one realization, fair and clear,
Towers up in monumental sanctity—
The ennobling sympathy of man for man!
| Romance and revery | |