28.10.2007, 09:36
Sydney Dobell
1824 - 1874
THE ARMY SURGEON.
OVER that breathing waste of friends and foes,
The wounded and the dying, hour by hour,
In will a thousand, yet but one in power,
He labours through the red and groaning day.
The fearful moorland where the myriads lay
Moved as a moving field of mangled worms.
And as a raw brood, orphaned in the storms,
Thrust up their heads if the wind bend a spray
Above them, but when the bare branch performs
No sweet paternal office, sink away
With helpless chirp of woe, so, as he goes,
Around his feet in clamorous agony
They rise and fall ; and all the seething plain
Bubbles a cauldron vast of many-coloured pain,
1824 - 1874
THE ARMY SURGEON.
OVER that breathing waste of friends and foes,
The wounded and the dying, hour by hour,
In will a thousand, yet but one in power,
He labours through the red and groaning day.
The fearful moorland where the myriads lay
Moved as a moving field of mangled worms.
And as a raw brood, orphaned in the storms,
Thrust up their heads if the wind bend a spray
Above them, but when the bare branch performs
No sweet paternal office, sink away
With helpless chirp of woe, so, as he goes,
Around his feet in clamorous agony
They rise and fall ; and all the seething plain
Bubbles a cauldron vast of many-coloured pain,