Читать книгу Apollo and Marsyas, and Other Poems - Eugene Lee-Hamilton - Страница 6

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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.