Hist? . . . <br />Through the corridor's echoes, <br />Louder and nearer <br />Comes a great shuffling of feet. <br />Quick, every one of you, <br />Strighten your quilts, and be decent! <br />Here's the Professor. <br /> <br />In he comes first <br />With the bright look we know, <br />From the broad, white brows the kind eyes <br />Soothing yet nerving you. Here at his elbow, <br />White-capped, white-aproned, the Nurse, <br />Towel on arm and her inkstand <br />Fretful with quills. <br />Here in the ruck, anyhow, <br />Surging along, <br />Louts, duffers, exquisites, students, and prigs - <br />Whiskers and foreheads, scarf-pins and spectacles - <br />Hustles the Class! And they ring themselves <br />Round the first bed, where the Chief <br />(His dressers and clerks at attention), <br />Bends in inspection already. <br /> <br />So shows the ring <br />Seen from behind round a conjurer <br />Doing his pitch in the street. <br />High shoulders, low shoulders, broad shoulders, narrow ones, <br />Round, square, and angular, serry and shove; <br />While from within a voice, <br />Gravely and weightily fluent, <br />Sounds; and then ceases; and suddenly <br />(Look at the stress of the shoulders!) <br />Out of a quiver of silence, <br />Over the hiss of the spray, <br />Comes a low cry, and the sound <br />Of breath quick intaken through teeth <br />Clenched in resolve. And the Master <br />Breaks from the crowd, and goes, <br />Wiping his hands, <br />To the next bed, with his pupils <br />Flocking and whispering behind him. <br /> <br />Now one can see. <br />Case Number One <br />Sits (rather pale) with his bedclothes <br />Stripped up, and showing his foot <br />(Alas for God's Image!) <br />Swaddled in wet, white lint <br />Brilliantly hideous with red.<br /><br />William Ernest Henley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/clinical/
