Sunday War Poet....

Eva Dobell

1876 - 1963

Night Duty

The pain and laughter of the day are done

So strangely hushed and still the long ward seems,

Only the Sister’s candle softly beams.

Clear from the church near by the clock strikes ’one’;

And all are wrapt away in secret sleep and dreams.

Here one cries sudden on a sobbing breath,

Gripped in the clutch of some incarnate fear:

What terror through the darkness draweth near?

What memory of carnage and of death?

What vanished scenes of dread to his closed eyes appear?

And one laughs out with an exultant joy.

An athlete he — Maybe his young limbs strain

In some remembered game, and not in vain

To win his side the goal — Poor crippled boy,

Who in the waking world will never run again.

One murmurs soft and low a woman’s name;

And here a vet’ran soldier calm and still

As sculptured marble sleeps, and roams at will

Through eastern lands where sunbeams scorch like flame,

By rich bazaar and town, and wood-wrapt snow-crowned hill.

Through the wide open window on great star,

Swinging her lamp above the pear-tree high,

Looks in upon these dreaming forms that lie

So near in body, yet in soul so far

As those bright worlds thick strewn on that vast depth of sky.

***

Eva Dobell was a British nurse, poet and editor. Deeply troubled by the pain and suffering she witnessed she served in hospitals during WW1 and wrote poetry about her patients and her experiences. She also took part in the morale boosting work of corresponding with prisoners of war.

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