The Last Message, William Hatherell © IWM (Art.IWM ART 5234) |
British V.A.D.
nurse Mary-Adair Macdonald knew first-hand of the physical and emotional
burdens born by the wounded of the war and those who cared for them. Her poem
“Epiphany Vision” reimagines the Bethlehem stable as a hospital ward, while the
kings who brought gifts to the Christ child are re-seen as the broken men of
the war.
Epiphany Vision
(In the Ward)
This is the
night of a Star.
Dusk grow window
and wall;
A Cross unseen
floats red o’er the wrack of war;
Silences fall
In the house
where the wounded are.
“Good-night to
all!”
Then I pause
awhile by the open door, and see
Their patient
faces, pale through the blue smoke-rings,
On the night of
Epiphany….
But who are
these, who are changed utterly,
Wearing a look
of Kings?
Brothers, whence
do ye come?
Royal and still,
what Star have ye looked upon?
--“From hill and
valley, from many a city home
We came; we
endured till the last of strength was gone,
Over the narrow
sea.
But what of a
Star? We have only fought for home
And babes on the
mother’s knee.”
(Their silence
saith.)
—Brothers, what
do ye bring
To the Christ
Whom Kings adored? —“We cannot tell.
We might have
fashioned once some simple thing;
Once we were
swift, who now are very slow;
We were skilled
of hand, who bear the splint and the sling.
We gave no
thought to Pain, in the year ago,
Who since have
passed through Hell.
But what should
we bring Him now—we, derelicts nigh past mending?’
(Frankincense, myrrh and gold;
Winds His
choristers, worlds about His knee….
Hath He room at
all in His awful Treasury
For the gifts
our Kings unfold
That can ne’er
be told?)
This is the
night of a Star.
They are
sleeping now; they have brought their warrior best
To the Lord
their God Who made them;
And lo! He hath
repaid them
With rest.—
This is the
night of a Star.
The laugh that
rings through torment, the ready jest,
Valor and youth,
lost hope, and a myriad dreams
Splendidly
given—
He hath taken up
to the inmost heart of Heaven.
And now—while
the night grows cold, and the ward-fire gleams—
You may guess
the tender Smile as He walketh hidden
In the place
where His Wise Ones are.
--Mary-Adair Macdonald
Like the wise
men from the East, the wounded soldiers have traveled far. They have left the comforts of their homes to
pursue a cause they thought noble. And marked by exhaustion, they too have
spent long hours patiently observing the night sky, theirs lit by the flares of
star shells bursting overhead.
What can the
wounded, these “derelicts nigh past mending” bring as gifts? Having lost their
youth, speed, and skill to the blast of shells, the whine of machine gun fire,
and the horrors found in No Man’s Land, what remains for these men to offer? They
have sacrificed not only their dreams, but their very wholeness, all “splendidly
given,” all forever gone.
Yet for a moment
as worlds slip and smoke rises as incense, this Epiphany vision reassures that
all is not lost, but rather has been tenderly gathered by the Holy One to whom
the gift was made. The wounded men’s hopes are preserved in “the inmost heart
of Heaven,” and Christ walks hidden amongst their beds, bestowing tender smiles
and blessings upon “His Wise Ones.”
Detail of The Scottish Women's Hospital, by Nora-Neilson Gray © IWM (Art.IWM ART 3090) |
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