Poem: "The Healers" by Laurence Binyon
Posted by kluciole at 12/17/2009 6:33 PM 
Categories: International, Conflict, Health, Writing, History
Categories: International, Conflict, Health, Writing, History
The Healers
by Laurence Binyon
In a vision of the night I saw them,
In the battles of the night.
'Mid the roar and the reeling shadows of blood
They were moving like light,
Light of the reason, guarded
Tense within the will,
As a lantern under a tossing of boughs
Burns steady and still.
With scrutiny calm, and with fingers
Patient as swift
They bind up the hurts and the pain-writhen
Bodies uplift,
Untired and defenceless; around them
With shrieks in its breath
Bursts stark from the terrible horizon
Impersonal death;
But they take not their courage from anger
That blinds the hot being;
They take not their pity from weakness;
Tender, yet seeing;
Feeling, yet nerved to the uttermost;
Keen, like steel;
Yet the wounds of the mind they are stricken with,
Who shall heal?
They endure to have eyes of the watcher
In hell, and not swerve
For an hour from the faith that they follow,
The light that they serve.
Man true to man, to his kindness
That overflows all,
To his spirit erect in the thunder
When all his forts fall, —
This light, in the tiger-mad welter,
They serve and they save.
What song shall be worthy to sing of them —
Braver than the brave?
HERE
Laurence Binyon (1869 - 1943)
Laurence Robert Binyon, (August 10, 1869 - March 10, 1943) was a British poet and scholar.
He is best known for the poem "For the Fallen", first published in the Times in September, 1914. The seven-verse poem honoured the World War I English war dead of that time and in particular the British Expeditionary Force, which had by then already had high casualty rates on the developing Western Front. The fourth verse from that poem has gained an existence of its own and is known today as "The Ode" - one that applies to all war casualties:
"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them".
"The Ode" is still regularly recited on occasions such as ANZAC day in Australia and Remembrance Day in Canada, and adorns numerous war memorials. In Australia's Retired Servicemen's Leagues, it is read out nightly at 6 p.m.
Binyon was born in Lancaster, England. Educated at Trinity College, Oxford, he was already writing poetry by 1890, and won the Newdigate Prize for one poem whilst still at Oxford. After graduation, he worked as a curator in the Oriental Department of the British Museum. Although too old to enlist, he went to the Western Front in 1916 to work for the Red Cross as a medical orderly. After the war, he returned to the museum, and wrote several books on art, in particular Oriental art. In 1933, he was appointed Norton professor of poetry at Harvard.
HERE
In the battles of the night.
'Mid the roar and the reeling shadows of blood
They were moving like light,
Light of the reason, guarded
Tense within the will,
As a lantern under a tossing of boughs
Burns steady and still.
With scrutiny calm, and with fingers
Patient as swift
They bind up the hurts and the pain-writhen
Bodies uplift,
Untired and defenceless; around them
With shrieks in its breath
Bursts stark from the terrible horizon
Impersonal death;
But they take not their courage from anger
That blinds the hot being;
They take not their pity from weakness;
Tender, yet seeing;
Feeling, yet nerved to the uttermost;
Keen, like steel;
Yet the wounds of the mind they are stricken with,
Who shall heal?
They endure to have eyes of the watcher
In hell, and not swerve
For an hour from the faith that they follow,
The light that they serve.
Man true to man, to his kindness
That overflows all,
To his spirit erect in the thunder
When all his forts fall, —
This light, in the tiger-mad welter,
They serve and they save.
What song shall be worthy to sing of them —
Braver than the brave?
HERE
Laurence Binyon (1869 - 1943)
Laurence Robert Binyon, (August 10, 1869 - March 10, 1943) was a British poet and scholar.
He is best known for the poem "For the Fallen", first published in the Times in September, 1914. The seven-verse poem honoured the World War I English war dead of that time and in particular the British Expeditionary Force, which had by then already had high casualty rates on the developing Western Front. The fourth verse from that poem has gained an existence of its own and is known today as "The Ode" - one that applies to all war casualties:
"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them".
"The Ode" is still regularly recited on occasions such as ANZAC day in Australia and Remembrance Day in Canada, and adorns numerous war memorials. In Australia's Retired Servicemen's Leagues, it is read out nightly at 6 p.m.
Binyon was born in Lancaster, England. Educated at Trinity College, Oxford, he was already writing poetry by 1890, and won the Newdigate Prize for one poem whilst still at Oxford. After graduation, he worked as a curator in the Oriental Department of the British Museum. Although too old to enlist, he went to the Western Front in 1916 to work for the Red Cross as a medical orderly. After the war, he returned to the museum, and wrote several books on art, in particular Oriental art. In 1933, he was appointed Norton professor of poetry at Harvard.
HERE
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