So often in the mid of night <br /> I wake me in my bed <br />With utter panic of affright <br /> To find my feet are dead; <br />And pace the floor to easy my pain <br /> And make them live again. <br /> <br />The folks at home are so discreet; <br /> They see me walk and walk <br />To keep the blood-flow in my feet, <br /> And though they never talk <br />I've heard them whisper: 'Mother may <br /> Have them cut off some day.' <br /> <br />Cut off my feet! I'd rather die . . . <br /> And yet the years of pain, <br />When in the darkness I will lie <br /> And pray to God in vain, <br />Thinking in agony: Oh why <br />Can doctors not annul our breath <br /> In honourable death?<br /><br />Robert William Service<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/gangrene-3/
