Poems (Tynan)/The New Nurse
THE NEW NURSE
When other children shut their eyes The sick child coughs and weeps alone, And Nanna, Nanna, Nanna, cries, Because the nurse he loved is gone. Between the coughing, with new hope Watches the door she will not ope.
Between the coughing listens keen For feet upon the nursery stair. The nursery hearth is bright and clean, The walls have pictures rich and rare. Alas, the little luckless wight, Whose world has gone to pieces quite!
Alack, the dear remembered head. Black on its pillow through the year! The terrible stranger wears instead Light hair. O Nanna, Nanna dear, Where do you hide through his alarms Your comfortable breast and arms?
Alone with her the long night through And ill—could anything be worse? No goblin 's grimmer in his view Than this cold, patient, stranger nurse. But though he calls for Nanna still, No Nanna comes nor ever will.