The gaunt brown walls <br />Look infinite in their decent meanness. <br />There is nothing of home in the noisy kettle, <br />The fulsome fire. <br /> <br />The atmosphere <br />Suggests the trail of a ghostly druggist. <br />Dressings and lint on the long, lean table - <br />Whom are they for? <br /> <br />The patients yawn, <br />Or lie as in training for shroud and coffin. <br />A nurse in the corridor scolds and wrangles. <br />It's grim and strange. <br /> <br />Far footfalls clank. <br />The bad burn waits with his head unbandaged. <br />My neighbour chokes in the clutch of chloral . . . <br />O, a gruesome world!<br /><br />William Ernest Henley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/interior-5/
