Gangrene

Robert William Service

So often in the mid of night
          I wake me in my bed
With utter panic of affright
          To find my feet are dead;
And pace the floor to easy my pain
          And make them live again.

The folks at home are so discreet;
          They see me walk and walk
To keep the blood-flow in my feet,
          And though they never talk
I’ve heard them whisper: ‘Mother may
          Have them cut off some day.’

Cut off my feet! I’d rather die . . .
          And yet the years of pain,
When in the darkness I will lie
          And pray to God in vain,
Thinking in agony: Oh why
Can doctors not annul our breath
          In honourable death?

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