Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Russia: Vol. XX. 1876–79.
Florence Nightingale
By Sydney Dobell (1824–1874)H
Who from a long and obscure dream of pain,—
His foemen’s frown imprinted in his brain,—
Wakes to thy healing face and dewy hand!
When this great noise has rolled from off the land,
When all those fallen Englishmen of ours
Have bloomed and faded in Crimean flowers,
Thy perfect charity unsoiled shall stand.
Some pitying student of a nobler age,
Lingering o’er this year’s half-forgotten page,
Shall see its beauty smiling ever there!
Surprised to tears his beating heart he stills,
Like one who finds among Athenian hills
A temple like a lily white and fair.