Classic Poem

There is a stately house of rest with trees and gardens fair,
And all day long the breezes blow along the river there;
'Twas builded on the bygone dreams of one of kindly wealth,
“In the hope that many sufferers should be restored to health”.

Watsonia and the wind-flower of our September speak,
The “wild-blood” and azalea are the health on patient's cheek,
The Swannie River daisies plead for Peace in time of storms,
The wild may and the late spring sky make nurses' uniforms.

The firs and pines and palms remind of other seas and hills;
The bluegum on its native soil reminds of Jims and Bills—
Those Bushmen down from Drought and Death to feel the ocean's kiss—
And you might almost hear them say: “Good cattle country, this!”

The sunset fades like hands that gave, and glows like hands that give;
And gilds the home where Kindliness and Eadith Walker live;
To mirror all the river lies like some land-locked lagoon;
A golden pathway on its breast, made by a golden moon.

The moonlight breathes on Walker Home and softens scrub and hill,
The native trees are strangely stirred, the pines are very still.
The nurse's lantern flits and flits, and pain and sorrow cease,
For all the patients are asleep—and all is Rest and Peace.

Nor class, nor creed, nor race debars, and even Wealth is free—
The suffering miser shares alike the Home with Poverty,
The Felon's past is never known when Kindness “sends him through”—
The stone says “Many Sufferers”, but it means “Sinners” too.

In a corner of that Hospital, where patients never go,
Well screened by fir and shrubbery a sandstone ledge runs low;
And, pencilled by an unknown hand upon the yellow stone,
Is “God Bless Thomas Walker”—four simple words alone.

I know not who the writer was, and I may never know:
It might have been but yesterday, or have been long ago.
'Tis near the pathway that divides the women from the men—
It might have been a tortured Christ, or a suffering Magdalen.

Perhaps some shy and shrinking soul, relieved awhile from Care,
Crept out of sight of “sterner stuff” to pay its tribute there.
Or maybe an Impenitent, as many such there be;
For hard men often drop a tear where none but God might see.

Maybe a drunkard parted from his children and his wife,
Who saw, in ways we know not of, the Light of Newer Life:
For none fights his besetting sin, with aching eyes and dim,
But somewhere in the world a child is praying hard for him.

But good or bad, or high or low—or were he anything—
(Or even traitor to his creed, and rebel to his King)—
I trust the Unknown Patient went with softened Care and Pain—
Or Health or Honesty restored—to fight the World again.

There is a stately Home of Rest where all the scene is fair,
And in the sun the ripples run along the river there:
'Twas builded on the noon-day dreams of one of kindly wealth,
In the Hope that Many Sufferers Should Be Restored To Health.