Written by
Anne Sexton |
They work with herbs
and penicillin
They work with gentleness
and the scalpel.
They dig out the cancer,
close an incision
and say a prayer
to the poverty of the skin.
They are not Gods
though they would like to be;
they are only a human
trying to fix up a human.
Many humans die.
They die like the tender,
palpitating berries
in November.
But all along the doctors remember:
First do no harm.
They would kiss if it would heal.
It would not heal.
If the doctors cure
then the sun sees it.
If the doctors kill
then the earth hides it.
The doctors should fear arrogance
more than cardiac arrest.
If they are too proud,
and some are,
then they leave home on horseback
but God returns them on foot.
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Written by
John Betjeman |
This is the time of day when we in the Mens's ward
Think "one more surge of the pain and I give up the fight.
"
Whe he who strggles for breath can struggle less strongly:
This is the time of day which is worse than night.
A haze of thunder hangs on the hospital rose-beds,
A doctors' foursome out of the links is played,
Safe in her sitting-room Sister is putting her feet up:
This is the time of day when we feel betrayed.
Below the windows, loads of loving relations
Rev in the car park, changing gear at the bend,
Making for home and a nice big tea and the telly:
"Well, we've done what we can.
It can't be long till the end.
"
This is the time of day when the weight of bedclothes
Is harder to bear than a sharp incision of steel.
The endless anonymous croak of a cheap transistor
Intesifies the lonely terror I feel.
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Written by
Michael Drayton |
As in some countries far remote from hence
The wretched creature destined to die,
Having the judgement due to his offence,
By surgeons begg'd, their art on him to try,
Which, on the living, work without remorse,
First make incision on each mastering vein,
Then staunch the bleeding, then trasnpierce the corse,
And with their balms recure the wounds again,
Then poison and with physic him restore;
Not that they fear the hopeless man to kill,
But their experience to increase the more;
Ev'n so my mistress works upon my ill,
By curing me and killing me each hour,
Only to show her beauty's sovereign power.
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