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 @3man@1—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? @3Warriors@1 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!Other Poems of Interest...TO MILITARY PROGRESS by MARIANNE MOORE ISADORA DUNCAN DANCING 'IPHIGENIA IN AULIS' by LOUIS UNTERMEYER IN HOSPITAL: 21. ROMANCE by WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY THE BLESSED VIRGIN, COMPARED TO THE AIR WE BREATHE by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS THE HYMNARY: 403. MARTYRS by ADAM OF SAINT VICTOR TIPPERARY: 2. AS THE TRANSLATORS WOULD HAVE INTERLINED IT . . . by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS |