The Cottage Hospital

At the end of a long-walled garden

    in a red provincial town,

A brick path led to a mulberry—

    scanty grass at its feet.

I lay under blackening branches

    where the mulberry leaves hung down

Sheltering ruby fruit globes

    from a Sunday-tea-time heat.

Apple and plum espaliers

    basked upon bricks of brown;

The air was swimming with insects,

    and children played in the street.

Out of this bright intentness

    into the mulberry shade

Musca domestica (housefly)

    swung from the August light

Slap into slithery rigging

    by the waiting spider made

Which spun the lithe elastic

    till the fly was shrouded tight.

Down came the hairy talons

    and horrible poison blade

And none of the garden noticed

    that fizzing, hopeless fight.

Say in what Cottage Hospital

    whose pale green walls resound

With the tap upon polished parquet

    of inflexible nurses’ feet

Shall I myself be lying

    when they range the screens around?

And say shall I groan in dying,

    as I twist the sweaty sheet?

Or gasp for breath uncrying,

    as I feel my senses drown’d

While the air is swimming with insects

    and children play in the street?