IN THE CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL

         

              EMMIE

                  I.

        Our doctor had call’d in another, I never

          had seen him before,
        But he sent a chill to my heart when I saw
          him come in at the door,
        Fresh from the surgery-schools of France
          and of other lands–
        Harsh red hair, big voice, big chest, big
          merciless hands!
        Wonderful cures he had done, O, yes, but
          they said too of him
        He was happier using the knife than in trying
          to save the limb,
        And that I can well believe, for he look’d
          so coarse and so red,
        I could think he was one of those who would
          break their jests on the dead,
        And mangle the living dog that had loved
          him and fawn’d at his knee–
        Drench’d with the hellish oorali–that
          ever such things should be!

         

                 II.

        Here was a boy–I am sure that some of

          our children would die
        But for the voice of love, and the smile,
          and the comforting eye–
        Here was a boy in the ward, every bone
          seem’d out of its place–
        Caught in a mill and crush’d–it was all
          but a hopeless case:
        And he handled him gently enough; but his
          voice and his face were not kind,
        And it was but a hopeless case, he had seen
          it and made up his mind,
        And he said to me roughly, ‘The lad will
          need little more of your care.’
        ‘All the more need,’ I told him, ‘to seek
          The Lord Jesus in prayer;
        They are all His children here, and I pray
          for them all as my own.’
        But he turn’d to me, ‘Ay, good woman,
          can prayer set a broken bone?’
        Then he mutter’d half to himself, but I
          know that I heard him say,
        ‘All very well–but the good Lord Jesus
          has had his day.’

         

                 III.

        Had? has it come? It has only dawn’d.

          It will come by and by.
        O, how could I serve in the wards if the
          hope of the world were a lie?
        How could I bear with the sights and the
          loathsome smells of disease
        But that He said, ‘Ye do it to me, when ye
          do it to these’?

         

                 IV.

        So he went. And we past to this ward

          where the younger children are laid.
        Here is the cot of our orphan, our darling,
          our meek little maid;
        Empty, you see, just now! We have lost
          her who loved her so much–
        Patient of pain tho’ as quick as a sensitive
          plant to the touch.
        Hers was the prettiest prattle, it often
          moved me to tears,
        Hers was the gratefullest heart I have
          found in a child of her years–
        Nay you remember our Emmie; you used
          to send her the flowers.
        How she would smile at ’em, play with ’em,
          talk to ’em hours after hours!
        They that can wander at will where the
          works of the Lord are reveal’d
        Little guess what joy can be got from a
          cowslip out of the field;
        Flowers to these ‘spirits in prison’ are all
          they can know of the spring,
        They freshen and sweeten the wards like
          the waft of an angel’s wing.
        And she lay with a flower in one hand and
          her thin hands crost on her breast–
        Wan, but as pretty as heart can desire, and
          we thought her at rest,
        Quietly sleeping–so quiet, our doctor said,
          ‘Poor little dear,
        Nurse, I must do it to-morrow; she’ll
          never live thro’ it, I fear.’

         

                 V.

        I walk’d with our kindly old doctor as far

          as the head of the stair,
        Then I return’d to the ward; the child
          didn’t see I was there.

         

                 VI.

        Never since I was nurse had I been so

          grieved and so vext!
        Emmie had heard him. Softly she call’d
          from her cot to the next,
        ‘He says I shall never live thro’ it; O Annie,
          what shall I do?’
        Annie consider’d. ‘If I,’ said the wise
          little Annie, ‘was you,
        I should cry to the dear Lord Jesus to help
          me, for, Emmie, you see,
        It’s all in the picture there: “Little children
          should come to me”’–
        Meaning the print that you gave us, I
          find that it always can please
        Our children, the dear Lord Jesus with
          children about his knees.
        ‘Yes, and I will,’ said Emmie, ‘but then if
          I call to the Lord,
        How should he know that it’s me? such a
          lot of beds in the ward!’
        That was a puzzle for Annie. Again she
          consider’d and said:
        ‘Emmie, you put out your arms, and you
          leave ’em outside on the bed–
        The Lord has so much to see to! but, Emmie,
          you tell it him plain,
        It’s the little girl with her arms lying out
          on the counterpane.’

         

                 VII.

        I had sat three nights by the child–I

          could not watch her for four–
        My brain had begun to reel–I felt I
          could do it no more.
        That was my sleeping-night, but I thought
          that it never would pass.
        There was a thunderclap once, and a clatter
          of hail on the glass,
        And there was a phantom cry that I heard
          as I tost about,
        The motherless bleat of a lamb in the
          storm and the darkness without;
        My sleep was broken besides with dreams
          of the dreadful knife
        And fears for our delicate Emmie who
          scarce would escape with her life;
        Then in the gray of the morning it seem’d
          she stood by me and smiled,
        And the doctor came at his hour, and we
          went to see to the child.

         

                 VIII.

        He had brought his ghastly tools; we believed

          her asleep again–
        Her dear, long, lean, little arms lying out
          on the counterpane–
        Say that His day is done! Ah, why should
          we care what they say?
        The Lord of the children had heard her,
          and Emmie had past away.