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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
DOCTORS AND NURSES, by ANNIE MATHESON Poet's Biography
First Line: A life for saving of life!
Last Line: And, living or dying, are blest!
Subject(s): Death; Plague; Sickness; Dead, The; Illness
First Line: A life for saving of life!
Last Line: And, living or dying, are blest!
Subject(s): Death; Plague; Sickness; Dead, The; Illness
A LIFE for saving of life!
Courage, compassion, skill—
A cool and resolute will,
Warring with Death, to the knife,
Death, and worse ill—
Loathsome horrors that fill
A mawkish soul with dismay,
Though to a man—a man
Such as God makes to-day
Of His best—
Who gives of his life away
To guard the lives of the rest,
To heal, not to slay—
The hideous things of disease
Are as if they were not! He sees,
The fighter who grapples with Death,
Only, with bated breath,
The dawning of hope and of light
On the awful dark. He will fight,
He will grip, hand to hand,
To withstand,
For his fellows, the weak and the poor,
All the foul, fell things at the door—
Poison, corruption, and pest!
Many there are who will give
Their strength away daily, just
To lift a life out of dust,
Or help the dying to live.
Doctors? Warriors unresting,
Men God makes of His best,
Who serve and make no protesting,
And, living or dying, are blest!
Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!
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A SICK CHILD by RANDALL JARRELL
AFTERNOON AT MACDOWELL by JANE KENYON
HAVING IT OUT WITH MELANCHOLY by JANE KENYON
SONNET: 9. HOPE by WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES