Page:Carroll - Phantasmagoria and other poems (1869).djvu/171



[Written soon after the Crimean War, when the name of Florence Nightingale had already become a household word, dear to all true British hearts.]


 * the dark silence of an ancient room,

Whose one tall window fronted to the West, Where, through laced tendrils of a hanging vine, The sunset glow was fading into night, Sat a pale Lady, resting weary hands Upon a great clasped volume, and her face Within her hands. Not as in rest she bowed, But large hot tears went coursing down her cheek, And her low-panted sobs broke awfully Upon the sleeping echoes of the night.