<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">The Healers</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">In</span> a vision of the night I saw them,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">In the battles of the night.</p><p class="line">'Mid the roar and the reeling shadows of blood</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">They were moving like light,</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Light of the reason, guarded</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">Tense within the will,</p><p class="line">As a lantern under a tossing of boughs</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">Burns steady and still.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">With scrutiny calm, and with fingers</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">Patient as swift</p><p class="line">They bind up the hurts and the pain-writhen</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">Bodies uplift,</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Untired and defenceless; around them</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">With shrieks in its breath</p><p class="line">Bursts stark from the terrible horizon</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">Impersonal death;</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">But they take not their courage from anger</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">That blinds the hot being;</p><p class="line">They take not their pity from weakness;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">Tender, yet seeing;</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Feeling, yet nerved to the uttermost;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">Keen, like steel;</p><p class="line">Yet the wounds of the mind they are stricken with,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">Who shall heal?</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">They endure to have eyes of the watcher</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">In hell, and not swerve</p><p class="line">For an hour from the faith that they follow,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">The light that they serve.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Man true to man, to his kindness</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">That overflows all,</p><p class="line">To his spirit erect in the thunder</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">When all his forts fall, --</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">This light, in the tiger-mad welter,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">They serve and they save.</p><p class="line">What song shall be worthy to sing of them --</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">Braver than the brave?</p></div><p class="byline">Laurence Binyon</p></body></html> · Great War