When e'er a noble deed is wrought,
When e'er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts in glad surprise,
To higher levels rise.
The tidal wave of deeper souls
Into our inmost being rolls,
And lifts us unawares
Out of all meaner cares.
Honour to those whose words or deeds
Thus help us in our daily needs,
And by their overflow
Raise us from what is low!
Thus thought I, as by night I read
Of the great army of the dead,
The trenches cold and damp,
The starved and frozen camp.
The wounded from the battle-plain,
In dreary hospitals of pain,
The cheerless corridors,
The cold and stony floors.
Lo! in that house of misery
A lady with a lamp I see
Pass through the glimmering gloom
And flit from room to room.
And slow, as in a dream of bliss
The speechless sufferer turns to kiss
Her shadow as it falls
Upon the darkening walls.
As if a door in heaven should be
Opened and then closed suddenly
The vision came and went
The light shone and was spent
On England's annals, through the long
Hereafter of her speech and song,
That light its rays shall cast
From the portals of the past.
A Lady with a Lamp shall stand,
In the great history of the land,
A noble type of good,
Heroic womanhood.
Nor even shall be wanting here
The palm, the lily and the spear
The symbols that of yore
Saint Filomena[C] bore.