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[Florence Nightingale]
WHENE’ER a noble deed is wrought, | |
| Whene’er is spoken a noble thought, | |
| Our hearts, in glad surprise, | |
| To higher levels rise. | |
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| The tidal wave of deeper souls | 5 |
| Into our inmost being rolls, | |
| And lifts us unawares | |
| Out of all meaner cares. | |
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| Honor to those whose words or deeds | |
| Thus help us in our daily needs, | 10 |
| And by their overflow | |
| Raise us from what is low! | |
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| Thus thought I, as by night I read | |
| Of the great army of the dead, | |
| The trenches cold and damp, | 15 |
| The starved and frozen camp, | |
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| The wounded from the battle-plain, | |
| In dreary hospitals of pain, | |
| The cheerless corridors, | |
| The cold and stony floors. | 20 |
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| Lo! in that house of misery | |
| A lady with a lamp I see | |
| Pass through the glimmering gloom, | |
| And flit from room to room. | |
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| And slow, as in a dream of bliss, | 25 |
| The speechless sufferer turns to kiss | |
| Her shadow, as it falls | |
| Upon the darkening walls. | |
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| As if a door in heaven should be | |
| Opened and then closed suddenly, | 30 |
| The vision came and went, | |
| The light shone and was spent. | |
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| On England’s annals, through the long | |
| Hereafter of her speech and song, | |
| That light its rays shall cast | 35 |
| From portals of the past. | |
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| A Lady with a Lamp shall stand | |
| In the great history of the land, | |
| A noble type of good, | |
| Heroic womanhood. | 40 |
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| Nor even shall be wanting here | |
| The palm, the lily, and the spear, | |
| The symbols that of yore | |
| Saint Filomena bore. | |
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