The Healers

IN a vision of the night I saw them,In the battles of the night.'Mid the roar and the reeling shadows of bloodThey were moving like light,

Light of the reason, guardedTense within the will,As a lantern under a tossing of boughsBurns steady and still.

With scrutiny calm, and with fingersPatient as swiftThey bind up the hurts and the pain-writhenBodies uplift,

Untired and defenceless; around themWith shrieks in its breathBursts stark from the terrible horizonImpersonal death;

But they take not their courage from angerThat blinds the hot being;They take not their pity from weakness;Tender, yet seeing;

Feeling, yet nerved to the uttermost;Keen, like steel;Yet the wounds of the mind they are stricken with,Who shall heal?

They endure to have eyes of the watcherIn hell, and not swerveFor an hour from the faith that they follow,The light that they serve.

Man true to man, to his kindnessThat overflows all,To his spirit erect in the thunderWhen all his forts fall,—

This light, in the tiger-mad welter,They serve and they save.What song shall be worthy to sing of themBraver than the brave?

Laurence Binyon