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 passes.

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.

XIX

SCRUBBER

SHE's tall and gaunt, and in her hard, sad face
With flashes of the old fun's animation
There lowers the fixed and peevish resignation
Bred of a past where troubles came apace.
She tells me that her husband, ere he died,
Saw seven of their children pass away,
And never knew the little lass at play
Out on the green, in whom he's deified.
Her kin dispersed, her friends forgot and gone,
All simple faith her honest Irish mind,
Scolding her spoiled young saint, she labours on:
Telling her dreams, taking her patients' part,
Trailing her coat sometimes: and you shall find
No rougher, quainter speech, nor kinder heart.

XX

VISITOR

HER little face is like a walnut shell

With wrinkling lines; her soft, white hair adorns Her withered brows in quaint, straight curls, like

horns;

And all about her clings an old, sweet smell.

Prim is her gown and quakerlike her shawl.

Well might her bonnets have been born on her. Can you conceive a Fairy Godmother

The subject of a strong religious call?

In snow or shine, from bed to bed she runs,
All twinkling smiles and texts and pious tales,
Her mittened hands, that ever give or pray,
Bearing a sheaf of tracts, a bag of buns :
A wee old maid that sweeps the Bridegroom's way,
Strong in a cheerful trust that never fails.