The Healers

 In a vision of the night I saw them, 
In the battles of the night.
 
'Mid the roar and the reeling shadows of blood 
They were moving like light, 

Light of the reason, guarded 
Tense within the will, 
As a lantern under a tossing of boughs 
Burns steady and still.
 

With scrutiny calm, and with fingers 
Patient as swift 
They bind up the hurts and the pain-writhen 
Bodies uplift, 

Untired and defenceless; around them 
With shrieks in its breath 
Bursts stark from the terrible horizon 
Impersonal death; 

But they take not their courage from anger 
That blinds the hot being; 
They take not their pity from weakness; 
Tender, yet seeing; 

Feeling, yet nerved to the uttermost; 
Keen, like steel; 
Yet the wounds of the mind they are stricken with, 
Who shall heal? 

They endure to have eyes of the watcher 
In hell, and not swerve 
For an hour from the faith that they follow, 
The light that they serve.
 

Man true to man, to his kindness 
That overflows all, 
To his spirit erect in the thunder 
When all his forts fall, —

This light, in the tiger-mad welter, 
They serve and they save.
 
What song shall be worthy to sing of them —
Braver than the brave?

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