Whene'er a noble deed is wrought, <br />Whene'er is spoken a noble thought, <br />Our hearts, in glad surprise, <br />To higher levels rise. <br /> <br />The tidal wave of deeper souls <br />Into our inmost being rolls, <br />And lifts us unawares <br />Out of all meaner cares. <br /> <br />Honor to those whose words or deeds <br />Thus help us in our daily needs, <br />And by their overflow <br />Raise us from what is low! <br /> <br />Thus thought I, as by night I read <br />Of the great army of the dead, <br />The trenches cold and damp, <br />The starved and frozen camp,-- <br /> <br />The wounded from the battle-plain, <br />In dreary hospitals of pain, <br />The cheerless corridors, <br />The cold and stony floors. <br /> <br />Lo! in that house of misery <br />A lady with a lamp I see <br />Pass through the glimmering gloom, <br />And flit from room to room. <br /> <br />And slow, as in a dream of bliss, <br />The speechless sufferer turns to kiss <br />Her shadow, as it falls <br />Upon the darkening walls. <br /> <br />As if a door in heaven should be <br />Opened and then closed suddenly, <br />The vision came and went, <br />The light shone and was spent. <br /> <br />On England's annals, through the long <br />Hereafter of her speech and song, <br />That light its rays shall cast <br />From portals of the past. <br /> <br />A Lady with a Lamp shall stand <br />In the great history of the land, <br />A noble type of good, <br />Heroic womanhood. <br /> <br />Nor even shall be wanting here <br />The palm, the lily, and the spear, <br />The symbols that of yore <br />Saint Filomena bore.<br /><br />Henry Wadsworth Longfellow<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/santa-filomena-birds-of-passage-flight-the-first/
