Читать книгу Poems - William Ernest Henley - Страница 14

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Hist? …

Through the corridor’s echoes,

Louder and nearer

Comes a great shuffling of feet.

Quick, every one of you,

Strighten your quilts, and be decent!

Here’s the Professor.

In he comes first

With the bright look we know,

From the broad, white brows the kind eyes

Soothing yet nerving you. Here at his elbow,

White-capped, white-aproned, the Nurse,

Towel on arm and her inkstand

Fretful with quills.

Here in the ruck, anyhow,

Surging along,

Louts, duffers, exquisites, students, and prigs—

Whiskers and foreheads, scarf-pins and spectacles—

Hustles the Class! And they ring themselves

Round the first bed, where the Chief

(His dressers and clerks at attention),

Bends in inspection already.

So shows the ring

Seen from behind round a conjurer

Doing his pitch in the street.

High shoulders, low shoulders, broad shoulders, narrow ones,

Round, square, and angular, serry and shove;

While from within a voice,

Gravely and weightily fluent,

Sounds; and then ceases; and suddenly

(Look at the stress of the shoulders!)

Out of a quiver of silence,

Over the hiss of the spray,

Comes a low cry, and the sound

Of breath quick intaken through teeth

Clenched in resolve. And the Master

Breaks from the crowd, and goes,

Wiping his hands,

To the next bed, with his pupils

Flocking and whispering behind him.

Now one can see.

Case Number One

Sits (rather pale) with his bedclothes

Stripped up, and showing his foot

(Alas for God’s Image!)

Swaddled in wet, white lint

Brilliantly hideous with red.