SISTER MARY OF THE PLAGUE.

In her work there is no flagging, And her slight frame seems of steel; And her face and eyes and motions, Tried by countless nights of watching, Nor fatigue nor pain reveal. Yet the Sisters say she eats not, Spurning food as ne’er did saint, And they murmur: “She is nourished By a miracle of Heaven; God allows not she should faint.” Through the darkened wards she passes On her round from bed to bed; And the sick who wait her coming Cease their groaning, smiling faintly As they hear her light quick tread. Through the gabled lanes she hurries; And the ribald men-at-arms Hush their mirth, and stepping backward Let her pass to soothe some death-bed, Safe from insults and alarms; And the priests and monks and townsfolk Whom she passes greet her sight With a strange respectful pleasure As she nears in dark blue flannel And huge cap of spotless white. Oh, the busy Flemish city Knows its Sister Mary well; And the very children show her To the stranger as she passes, And her story all can tell: How she won a lasting glory, Cleaving to the dread bedside When the Plague with livid pinions Lighted on the crowded alleys, And all others fled or died. How alone she made men listen In their fear, and do her will; Making help and making order When the customary rulers Trembled helpless, and stood still. How she had the corpses buried When they choked canal and street; When alone the shackled convicts, Goaded on with pike and halberd, Cared to near with quaking feet. But those days of fear are over, And the pure canal reflects Barges decked with pots of flowers And long rows of tile-faced gables Which no breeze of death infects. And once more the city prospers Through the cunning of its guilds; While the restless shuttles clatter, And in peace the busy Fleming Weaves and tans and brews and builds; And the bearded Spanish troopers, Sitting idly in the shade, Toss their dice with oath and rattle, Or crack jokes with girls that pass them, Laughing-eyed and unafraid.

Sister Mary, Sister Mary, In thy soul there is some change: For thy face the while thou watchest By a pale young Spanish soldier Works with struggle strong and strange. Thou hast watched a hundred death-beds Ever calm without dismay; Fighting like a steady fighter While the shade of Death pressed onward Night on night and day on day; And when Death had proved the stronger Thou wouldst heave one sigh at most, And then turn to some new moaner, Ready to resume the battle, Just as steady at thy post. Now thy soul is filled with anguish Strange and wild, thou know’st not why; While a voice unknown and inward Seems to whisper, far and faintly, “If he dies, thou too wilt die,” Many months has he been lying In thy ward and rises not; Youth and strength avail him nothing; Growing daily whiter, whiter; Dying of men know not what. And he murmurs: “Sister Mary, Now the end is nearing fast; Thou hast nursed me like God’s Angel, But the hand of God is on me And thy care must end at last. “I have few, few days remaining; Now I scarce can draw my breath; See my hand: no blood is in it; And I feel like one who slowly, Slowly, slowly, bleeds to death.” And his worn and heavy eyelids Close again as if in sleep; While thou lookest at his features With a long and searching anguish In thy eyes—that dare not weep. Sister Mary, Sister Mary, Watch him closer, closer still! There be things within the boundless Realm of Horror, unsuspected— Things that slowly, slowly, kill! In his face there is no colour, And his hand is ivory-white; But upon his throat is something Like a small red stain or puncture, Something like a leech’s bite. Sister Mary, Sister Mary, Dost thou see that small red stain? Hast thou never noticed something Like it on the throats of others Whom thy care has nursed in vain? Have no rumours reached thee, Sister, Of a Thing that haunts these wards When the scanty sleep thou takest Cheats the sick of the protection Which thy vigilance affords? When, at night, the ward is silent And the night-lamp’s dimness hides, And the nurse on duty slumbers In her chair with measured breathing, Then it glides, and glides, and glides, Like a woman’s form, new risen From the grave with soundless feet, Clad in something which the shadows Of the night-lamp render doubtful Whether robe or winding-sheet. And its eyes seem fixed and sightless, Like the eyeballs of the dead; But it gropes not and moves onward Sure and silent, seeking something, In the ward, from bed to bed. And if any, lying sleepless, Sees it, he becomes as stone; Terror glues his lips together, While his eyes are forced to follow All its movements, one by one. And he sees it stop, and hover Round a bed, with wavering will, Like a bat which, ere it settles, Flits in circles ever smaller, Nearer, nearer, nearer still. Then it bends across the sleeper Restless in the sultry night, And begins to fan him gently With its garment, till his slumber Groweth deep, and dreamless quite; And its corpse-like face unstiffens And its dead eyes seem to gloat As, approaching and approaching, It applies its mouth of horror Slowly, firmly, to his throat. Sister Mary, Sister Mary, Has no rumour told thee this? What if he whose life thou lovest Like thine own, and more, were dying Of that long terrific kiss?

From the Hospital’s arched window, Open to the summer air, You can see the monks in couples All returning home at sunset Through the old cathedral square. On the steps of the cathedral, In the weak declining sun Sit the beggars and the cripples; While faint gusts of organ-rolling Tell that vespers have begun. Slowly creeps the tide of shadow Up the steps of sculptured front, Driving back the yellow sunshine On each pinnacle and buttress Which the twilight soon makes blunt. Slowly evening grasps the city, And the square grows still and lone; No one passes save, it may be, Up the steps and through the portal, Some stray monk or tottering crone. In this room, which seems the study Of the Hospital’s chief leech, There is no one; but the twilight Makes all objects seem mysterious, Like a conscious watcher each. Here the snakes whose venom healeth Stand in jars in hideous file; While the skulls that crown the book-shelves Seem to grin; and from the ceiling Hangs the huge stuffed crocodile. Here be kept the drugs and cordials Which the Jew from Syria brings, And perchance drugs yet more precious, Melted topaz, pounded ruby Such as save the lives of kings. All is silent in the study; But the door-hinge creaks anon, And a woman enters softly Seeking something that seems hidden— One unnaturally wan. What she seeks is not in phials Nor in jars, but in a book; And she mutters as she searches Through the book-shelves with a kind of Brooding hurry in her look; And she finds the book, and takes it To the window for more light; And she reads a passage slowly With constrained and hissing breathing And dark brow contracted tight. “Most of them,” it says, “are corpses That have lain beneath the moon, And that quit their graves at midnight, Prowling round to prey on sleepers; But the daybreak scares them soon. “But the worst, called soulless bodies, Plague the world but now and then; They have died in some great sickness; But reviving in the moonbeams Rise once more and mix with men. “And they act and feel like others, Never guessing they be dead, Common food of men they love not; But at night, impelled by hunger, In their sleep they quit their bed; “And they fasten on some sleeper, Feeding on his living blood; Who, when life has left his body, Must in turn arise, and, prowling, Seek the like accursed food.” And the book slips from her fingers And she casts her down to pray; But convulsions seize and twist her, And delirious ramblings mingle With the prayers she tries to say. In her mouth there is a saltness, On her lips there is a stain; In her soul there is a horror; In her vitals there is something More like raging thirst than pain; And she cries, “O God, I knew it: Have I not, at dead of night, Waking up, looked round and found me On the ledge of roofs and windows In my shift, and shrunk with fright? “Have I not, O God of mercy, Passed by shambles in the street, And stopped short in monstrous craving For the crimson blood that trickled In the gutter at my feet? “Did I not, at last Communion, Cough the Holy Wafer out? Blood I suck, but Christ’s blood chokes me. O my God, my God, vouchsafe me Some strong light in this great doubt!” And she sinketh crushed and prostrate In the twilight on the floor, While the darkness grows around her, And her quick and laboured breathing Grows convulsive more and more.

Sister Mary, all is quiet In thy wards, and midnight nears: Seek the scanty rest thou needest; Seek the scanty rest thou grudgest, All is hushed and no one fears. But, though midnight, Sister Mary Thinks it yet not time to go; And the night-lamps shining dimly Show her vaguely in the shadow Moving softly to and fro. What is it that she is doing, Flitting round one sleeper’s bed; Is she sprinkling something round it, Something white as wheaten flour, And on which she will not tread? And at last the work is over, And she goeth to her rest; And she sleeps at once, exhausted By long labour, and, it may be, By strong struggles in her breast. Nothing breaks upon the stillness Of the night, except, afar, Some faint shouts of ending revel Or of brawling, in the quarters Where the Spanish soldiers are. Time wades slowly through the darkness Till at last it reaches day, And the city’s many steeples Buried in the starless heaven Grow distinct in sunless grey. And the light wakes Sister Mary, And she dresses in strange haste, Giving God no prayer, and leaving On her bed the beads and crosses That should dangle from her waist. And with unheard steps she hurries Through the ward where all sleep on To the bed in which is lying He who day by day is growing More inexorably wan. All around the bed is sprinkled Something white, like thin fresh snow, Where a naked foot has printed In the night a many footprints, Sharp and clear from heel to toe: Sister Mary, Sister Mary, Dost thou know thy own small foot? Would it fit those marks which make thee Turn more pale than thy own paleness If upon them it were put? And the dying youth smiles faintly Pleasure’s last accorded smile; And he murmurs as he hears her, “Sister Mary, I am better; Let me hold thy hand awhile: “Sister Mary, I would tell thee Fain one thing before I die; For a dying man may utter What another must keep hidden In the fastness of a sigh. “Sister Mary, I have loved thee— Is it sin to tell thee this? And I dreamt—O God, be lenient If ’tis sin—that thou didst give me On the throat a long, long kiss.”