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In Hospital - VIII - Staff-Nurse: Old Style

By William Ernest Henley

Topics: classic

The greater masters of the commonplace,     REMBRANDT and good SIR WALTER - only these     Could paint her all to you:    experienced ease     And antique liveliness and ponderous grace;     The sweet old roses of her sunken face;     The depth and malice of her sly, grey eyes;     The broad Scots tongue that flatters, scolds, defies;     The thick Scots wit that fells you like a mace.     These thirty years has she been nursing here,     Some of them under SYME , her hero still.     Much is she worth, and even more is made of her.     Patients and students hold her very dear.     The doctors love her, tease her, use her skill.     They say 'The Chief' himself is half-afraid of her.

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Author:William Ernest Henley

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William Ernest Henley

About William Ernest Henley

William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) was an English poet, critic, and editor best known for his poem "Invictus" ("I am the master of my fate / I am the captain of my soul"). Written while recovering from tuberculosis of the bone, it has become one of the most quoted poems of courage and resilience.

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"What have I done for you,     England, my England?..."

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