Part 2 (2/2)

His wise, rare smile is sweet with certainties, And seems in all his patients to compel Such love and faith as failure cannot quell.

We hold him for another Herakles, Battling with custom, prejudice, disease, As once the son of Zeus with Death and h.e.l.l.

XVI--HOUSE-SURGEON

Exceeding tall, but built so well his height Half-disappears in flow of chest and limb; Moustache and whisker trooper-like in trim; Frank-faced, frank-eyed, frank-hearted; always bright And always punctual--morning, noon, and night; Bland as a Jesuit, sober as a hymn; Humorous, and yet without a touch of whim; Gentle and amiable, yet full of fight.

His piety, though fresh and true in strain, Has not yet whitewashed up his common mood To the dead blank of his particular Schism.

Sweet, unaggressive, tolerant, most humane, Wild artists like his kindly elderhood, And cultivate his mild Philistinism.

XVII--INTERLUDE

O, the fun, the fun and frolic That The Wind that Shakes the Barley Scatters through a penny-whistle Tickled with artistic fingers!

Kate the scrubber (forty summers, Stout but sportive) treads a measure, Grinning, in herself a ballet, Fixed as fate upon her audience.

Stumps are shaking, crutch-supported; Splinted fingers tap the rhythm; And a head all helmed with plasters Wags a measured approbation.

Of their mattress-life oblivious, All the patients, brisk and cheerful, Are encouraging the dancer, And applauding the musician.

Dim the gas-lights in the output Of so many ardent smokers, Full of shadow lurch the corners, And the doctor peeps and pa.s.ses.

There are, maybe, some suspicions Of an alcoholic presence . . .

'Tak' a sup of this, my wumman!' . . .

New Year comes but once a twelvemonth.

XVIII--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.

XVIIII--SCRUBBER

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