His fingers wake, and flutter up the bed. His eyes come open with a pull of will, Helped by the yellow may-flowers by his head. A blind-cord drawls across the window-sill … How smooth the floor of the ward is! what a rug! And who’s that talking, somewhere out of sight? Why are they laughing? What’s inside that jug? “Nurse! Doctor!” “Yes; all right, all right.”
But sudden dusk bewilders all the air— There seems no time to want a drink of water. Nurse looks so far away. And everywhere Music and roses burnt through crimson slaughter. Cold; cold; he’s cold; and yet so hot: And there’s no light to see the voices by— No time to dream, and ask—he knows not what.