Poem by William Ernest Henley

In Hospital. 18. 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.

1. In Hospital. 12. Etching
2. In Hospital. 14. Ave, Caeser!
3. Echoes. 44. If It Should Come to Be
4. London Voluntaries. 5. Allegro Maëstoso
5. Rhymes and Rhythms. 23. Here They Trysted, Here They Strayed

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