T6 ONE THOUSAND FAMOUS THINGS
A Lady With a Lamp Shall Stand
WHENE'EB a noble deed Is wrought,
Whene'er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts, in glad surprise,
To higher levels rise.
The tidal wave of deeper souls
Into our inmost being rolls*
And lifts us unawares
Out of all meaner cares.
Honour to those whose words or deeds
Thus help us in our daily needs,
And by their overflow
Raise us from what is low I
Thus thought I, as by night I read
Of the great army of the dead,
The trenches cold and damp,
The starved and frozen campy
The wounded from the battle-plain
In dreary hospitals of pain,
The cheerless corridors.
The cold and stony floors*
Lo! in that house of misery
A lady with a lamp I see
Pass through the glimmering gloom*
And flit from room to room.
And slow, as in a dream of bliss,
The speechless sufferer turns to kiss
Her shadow, as it falls
Upon the darkening walls.
As if a door in heaven should be
Opened and then closed suddenly,
The vision came and went.
The light shone and was spent.
On England's annals, through the long
Hereafter of her speech and song,
That light its rays shall cast
From portals of the past*
A Lady with a Lamp shall stand
In the great history of the land,
A noble type of good,
Heroic womanhood.
Longfellow an Florence Nightingale