THE CASUALTY CLEARING STATION
Reading edition
A bowl of daffodils, A crimson-quilted bed, Sheets and pillows white as snow— White and gold and red— And sisters moving to and fro, With soft and silent tread.
So all my spirit fills With pleasure infinite, And all the feathered wings of rest Seem flocking from the radiant West To bear me thro' the night.
See, how they close me in. They, and the sisters' arms. One eye is closed, the other lid Is watching how my spirit slid Toward some red-roofed farms, And having crept beneath them slept Secure from war's alarms.
Gilbert Waterhouse