And slow, as in a dream of bliss The speechless sufferer turns to kiss Her shadow as it falls Upon the darkening walls.
As if a door in heaven should be Opened and then closed suddenly The vision came and went The light shone and was spent
On England"s annals, through the long Hereafter of her speech and song, That light its rays shall cast From the portals of the past.
A Lady with a Lamp shall stand, In the great history of the land, A n.o.ble type of good, Heroic womanhood.
Nor even shall be wanting here The palm, the lily and the spear The symbols that of yore Saint Filomena[C] bore.
FOOTNOTES:
[C] In her "Sacred and Legendary Art," Mrs. Jamieson writes that "at Pisa the Church of San Francesco contained a chapel dedicated to Santa Filomena; over the altar is a picture by Sabatelli, representing the saint as a beautiful nymph-like figure floating down from heaven, attended by two angels, bearing the lily, palm, and javelin, and beneath, in the foreground, the sick and maimed who are healed by her intercession."
Longfellow gave the name Filomena to Florence Nightingale partly because of her labours among the sick and dying at Scutari, and partly on account of the resemblance between Filomena and the Latin Philomela (nightingale).--_Brewer._