Sean Dempsey
8-18-25
The lanterns burn with pallid light,
And the corridors are still;
Yet walls divide both joy and blight:
Both mercy and its ill.
The midnight hush is cold and long,
The air with ether sweet;
The measured steps of nurses’ throng
Beat soft on weary feet.
A mother clasps her newborn son!
His cry: a trumpet clear.
Her weary heart declares him won,
And hope redeems her fear.
She whispers dreams of days to be:
A cottage by the stream…
Of summer fields and climbing trees,
A boy who learns to dream.
Her husband bends with misted eyes,
His hand upon her own;
The world reborn before them lies…
A joy they’ve scarcely known.
She kisses him with trembling grace;
The child’s calmed her pain.
And in his wrinkled, reddened face
She sees the world again.
But muffled through the nearby door
There seeps a strangled sound;
The hush that follows tells the score:
A cradle not yet found.
The doctor’s tones are grave and low;
The midwife bows her head.
The candles flicker as they show…
A life too young has fled.
The father’s cry is cracked and torn;
It echoes down the hall.
A daughter lost before she’s born;
A mother’s silent pall.
The sheets are wet with vile tears;
The prayers are thick with dread!
They mark the tally of the years
The girl will never tread.
No lullaby can cross that wall,
No hymn can bridge that space;
One room beholds a life’s new call,
The next: a grave’s embrace.
The mother with her living child
Feels sorrow press her breast;
Her joy is keen, her heart is wild,
Yet shamed beside the rest.
Her laughter trembles, sweet yet shy,
Aware that sorrow’s near;
She dares to sing, yet feels the cry
Of mourning sharp and clear.
She lifts her child with gentle hands,
Yet feels dark shadow’s press;
For joy’s a thief when grief commands
The tears on others’ breasts.
The father by her side is torn,
His smile edged with rue;
For down the hall, a soul stillborn
Lies cold where dreams are few.
The nurses walk with solemn tread…
Their faces bowed in prayer.
They tend the living and the dead,
Both burdens hard to bear.
O mother, if you hear this song,
Step softly where you pass;
Dear God, I pray, find no wrong:
Pass by and forgive our happiness!
