Poems (Henley)/Interior

by William Ernest Henley

III INTERIOR

    The gaunt brown wallsLook infinite in their decent meanness.There is nothing of home in the noisy kettle,    The fulsome fire.

    The atmosphereSuggests the trail of a ghostly druggist.Dressings and lint on the long, lean table—    Whom are they for?

    The patients yawn,Or lie as in training for shroud and coffin.A nurse in the corridor scolds and wrangles.    It's grim and strange.

    Far footfalls clank.The bad burn waits with his head unbandaged.My neighbour chokes in the clutch of chloral . . .    O, a gruesome world!