The Army Surgeon

Over that breathing waste of friends and foes, The wounded and the dying, hour by hour,- In will a thousand, yet but one in power,- He labours thro' the red and groaning day. The fearful moorland where the myriads lay Moved as a moving field of mangled worms. And as a raw brood, orphaned in the storms, Thrust up their heads if the wind bend a spray Above them, but when the bare branch performs No sweet parental office, sink away With hopeless chirp of woe, so as he goes Around his feet in clamorous agony They rise and fall; and all the seething plain Bubbles a cauldron vast of many-coloured pain.