Remorse

The lungs draw in the air and rattle it out again;

    The eyes revolve in their sockets and upwards stare;

No more worry and waiting and troublesome doubt again—

    She whom I loved and left is no longer there.

The nurse puts down her knitting and walks across to her,

    With quick professional eye she surveys the dead.

Just one patient the less and little the loss to her,

    Distantly tender she settles the shrunken head.

Protestant claims and Catholic, the wrong and the right of them,

    Unimportant they seem in the face of death—

But my neglect and unkindness—to lose the sight of them

    I would listen even again to that labouring breath.