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Sister Mary, Sister Mary,

In thy soul there is some change:

For thy face the while thou watchest

By a pale young Spanish soldier

Works with struggle strong and strange.

Thou hast watched a hundred death-beds

Ever calm without dismay;

Fighting like a steady fighter

While the shade of Death pressed onward

Night on night and day on day;

And when Death had proved the stronger

Thou wouldst heave one sigh at most,

And then turn to some new moaner,

Ready to resume the battle,

Just as steady at thy post.

Now thy soul is filled with anguish

Strange and wild, thou know’st not why;

While a voice unknown and inward

Seems to whisper, far and faintly,

“If he dies, thou too wilt die,”

Many months has he been lying

In thy ward and rises not;

Youth and strength avail him nothing;

Growing daily whiter, whiter;

Dying of men know not what.

And he murmurs: “Sister Mary,

Now the end is nearing fast;

Thou hast nursed me like God’s Angel,

But the hand of God is on me

And thy care must end at last.

“I have few, few days remaining;

Now I scarce can draw my breath;

See my hand: no blood is in it;

And I feel like one who slowly,

Slowly, slowly, bleeds to death.”

And his worn and heavy eyelids

Close again as if in sleep;

While thou lookest at his features

With a long and searching anguish

In thy eyes—that dare not weep.

Sister Mary, Sister Mary,

Watch him closer, closer still!

There be things within the boundless

Realm of Horror, unsuspected—

Things that slowly, slowly, kill!

In his face there is no colour,

And his hand is ivory-white;

But upon his throat is something

Like a small red stain or puncture,

Something like a leech’s bite.

Sister Mary, Sister Mary,

Dost thou see that small red stain?

Hast thou never noticed something

Like it on the throats of others

Whom thy care has nursed in vain?

Have no rumours reached thee, Sister,

Of a Thing that haunts these wards

When the scanty sleep thou takest

Cheats the sick of the protection

Which thy vigilance affords?

When, at night, the ward is silent

And the night-lamp’s dimness hides,

And the nurse on duty slumbers

In her chair with measured breathing,

Then it glides, and glides, and glides,

Like a woman’s form, new risen

From the grave with soundless feet,

Clad in something which the shadows

Of the night-lamp render doubtful

Whether robe or winding-sheet.

And its eyes seem fixed and sightless,

Like the eyeballs of the dead;

But it gropes not and moves onward

Sure and silent, seeking something,

In the ward, from bed to bed.

And if any, lying sleepless,

Sees it, he becomes as stone;

Terror glues his lips together,

While his eyes are forced to follow

All its movements, one by one.

And he sees it stop, and hover

Round a bed, with wavering will,

Like a bat which, ere it settles,

Flits in circles ever smaller,

Nearer, nearer, nearer still.

Then it bends across the sleeper

Restless in the sultry night,

And begins to fan him gently

With its garment, till his slumber

Groweth deep, and dreamless quite;

And its corpse-like face unstiffens

And its dead eyes seem to gloat

As, approaching and approaching,

It applies its mouth of horror

Slowly, firmly, to his throat.

Sister Mary, Sister Mary,

Has no rumour told thee this?

What if he whose life thou lovest

Like thine own, and more, were dying

Of that long terrific kiss?