In a vision of the night I saw them, <br />In the battles of the night. <br />'Mid the roar and the reeling shadows of blood <br />They were moving like light, <br /> <br />Light of the reason, guarded <br />Tense within the will, <br />As a lantern under a tossing of boughs <br />Burns steady and still. <br /> <br />With scrutiny calm, and with fingers <br />Patient as swift <br />They bind up the hurts and the pain-writhen <br />Bodies uplift, <br /> <br />Untired and defenceless; around them <br />With shrieks in its breath <br />Bursts stark from the terrible horizon <br />Impersonal death; <br /> <br />But they take not their courage from anger <br />That blinds the hot being; <br />They take not their pity from weakness; <br />Tender, yet seeing; <br /> <br />Feeling, yet nerved to the uttermost; <br />Keen, like steel; <br />Yet the wounds of the mind they are stricken with, <br />Who shall heal? <br /> <br />They endure to have eyes of the watcher <br />In hell, and not swerve <br />For an hour from the faith that they follow, <br />The light that they serve. <br /> <br />Man true to man, to his kindness <br />That overflows all, <br />To his spirit erect in the thunder <br />When all his forts fall, — <br /> <br />This light, in the tiger-mad welter, <br />They serve and they save. <br />What song shall be worthy to sing of them — <br />Braver than the brave?<br /><br />Laurence Binyon<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-healers/
