A light finger is pressing
Softly, softly, the sore wounds: the hot blood-stained dressing
Slips from them. A comforting quietude steals
Thro' the racked weary frame; and throughout it, he feels
The slow sense of a merciful, mild neighbourhood.
Something smoothes the toss'd pillow. Beneath a gray hood
Of rough serge, two intense tender eyes are bent o'er him,
And thrill thro' and thro' him. The sweet form before him,
It is surely Death's angel Life's last vigil keeping!
A soft voice says--'Sleep!'
And he sleeps: he is sleeping.
He waked before dawn. Still the vision is there:
Still that pale woman moves not. A minist'ring care
Meanwhile has been silently changing and cheering
The aspect of all things around him.
Revering
Some power unknown and benignant, he bless'd
In silence the sense of salvation. And rest
Having loosen'd the mind's tangled meshes, he faintly
Sigh'd--'Say what thou art, blessed dream of a saintly
'And minist'ring spirit!
A whisper serene
Slid softer than silence--'The Soeur Seraphine,
'A poor Sister of Charity.
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