In the Children's Hospital 279 And he handled him gently enough; but his voice and his face were not kind, And it was but a hopeless case, he had seen it and made up his mind, And he said to me roughly "The lad will need little more of your care." "All the more need," I told him, "to seek the Lord Jesus in prayer; They are all His children here, and I pray for them all as my own:" But he turned to me, "Ay, good woman, can prayer set a broken bone?" Then he muttered half to himself, but I know that I heard him say, "All very well-but the good Lord Jesus has had his day." Had? has it come? It has only dawned. It will come by and by. O, how could I serve in the wards if the hope of the world were a lie? How could I bear with the sights and the loathsome smells of disease But that He said "Ye do it to me, when ye do it to these"? So he went. And we passed to this ward where the younger children are laid: Here is the cot of our orphan, our darling, our meek little maid; Empty you see just now! We have lost her who loved her so much Patient of pain though as quick as a sensitive plant to the touch; Hers was the prettiest prattle, it often moved me to tears, Hers was the gratefullest heart I have found in a child of her years Nay you remember our Emmie; you used to send her the flowers; How she would smile at 'em, play with 'em, talk to 'em hours after hours! They that can wander at will where the works of the Lord are revealed Little guess what joy can be got from a cowslip out of the field; Flowers to these "spirits in prison" are all they can know of the spring, They freshen and sweeten the wards like the waft of an angel's wing; And she lay with a flower in one hand and her thin hands crossed on her breast Wan, but as pretty as heart can desire, and we thought her at rest, Quietly sleeping-so quiet, our doctor said, "Poor little dear, Nurse, I must do it to-morrow; she'll never live through it, I fear." I walked with our kindly old doctor as far as the head of the stair, Then I returned to the ward; the child didn't see I was there. Never since I was nurse, had I been so grieved and so vexed! Emmie had heard him. Softly she called from her cot to the next, "He says I shall never live through it; O Annie, what shall I do?" Annie considered. "If I," said the wise little Annie, "was you, I should cry to the dear Lord Jesus to help me, for, Emmie, you see, It's all in the picture there: 'Little children should come to Me.'" (Meaning the print that you gave us, I find that it always can please Our children, the dear Lord Jesus with children about His knees.) "Yes, and I will," said Emmie, "but then if I call to the Lord, How should He know that it's me? such a lot of beds in the ward?" In the Children's Hospital 281 That was a puzzle for Annie. Again she considered and said: "Emmie, you put out your arms, and you leave 'em outside on the bed The Lord has so much to see to! but, Emmie, you tell it Him plain, It's the little girl with her arms lying out on the counterpane." I had sat three nights by the child-I could not watch her for four My brain had begun to reel-I felt I could do it no more. That was my sleeping-night, but I thought that it never would pass. There was a thunderclap once, and a clatter of hail on the glass, And there was a phantom cry that I heard as I tossed about, The motherless bleat of a lamb in the storm and the darkness without; My sleep was broken besides with dreams of the dreadful knife And fears for our delicate Emmie who scarce would escape with her life; Then in the gray of the morning it seemed she stood by me and smiled, And the doctor came at his hour, and we went to see the child. He had brought his ghastly tools: we believed her asleep again Her dear, long, lean, little arms lying out on the counter pane; Say that His day is done! Ah, why should we care what they say? The Lord of the children had heard her, and Emmie had passed away. Alfred Tennyson [1809-1892] "IF I WERE DEAD" "IF I were dead, you'd sometimes say, Poor Child!" The dear lips quivered as they spake, And the tears brake From eyes which, not to grieve me, brightly smiled. Poor Child, poor Child! I seem to hear your laugh, your talk, your song. It is not true that Love will do no wrong. Poor Child! And did you think, when you so cried and smiled, And of those words your full avengers make? And now, unless it be That sweet amends thrice told are come to thee, O God, have Thou no mercy upon me! Poor Child! Coventry Patmore [1823-1896] THE TOYS My little Son, who looked from thoughtful eyes With hard words and unkissed, -His Mother, who was patient, being dead. But found him slumbering deep, With darkened eyelids, and their lashes yet From his late sobbing wet. And I, with moan, Kissing away his tears, left others of my own; For, on a table drawn beside his head, He had put, within his reach, A box of counters and a red-veined stone, A piece of glass abraded by the beach, A Song of Twilight 283 And six or seven shells, A bottle with bluebells, And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art, To comfort his sad heart. So when that night I prayed To God, I wept, and said: Ah, when at last we lie with tranced breath, Not vexing Thee in death, And Thou rememberest of what toys We made our joys, How weakly understood Thy great commanded good, Then, fatherly not less Than I whom Thou hast moulded from the clay, Thou'lt leave Thy wrath, and say, "I will be sorry for their childishness." Coventry Patmore [1823-1896] A SONG OF TWILIGHT Он, to come home once more, when the dusk is falling, Oh, to come home once more, and see the smiling faces, Men and women now they are, standing straight and steady, Still each answers to my call; no good has been denied me, The evening closes gently in, and how can I repine? |