Conscious

His fingers wake, and flutter up the bed.
His eyes come open with a pull of will,
Helped by the yellow may-flowers by his head.
A blind-cord drawls across the window-sill . . .
How smooth the floor of the ward is! what a rug!
And who's that talking, somewhere out of sight?
Why are they laughing? What's inside that jug?
"Nurse! Doctor!" "Yes; all right, all right."

But sudden dusk bewilders all the air -- -
There seems no time to want a drink of water.
Nurse looks so far away. And everywhere
Music and roses burnt through crimson slaughter.
Cold; cold; he's cold; and yet so hot:
And there's no light to see the voices by -- -
No time to dream, and ask -- - he knows not what.


Analysis/Commentary

In Conscious the poet probably describes his experiance in the hospital. This poem has a very confused tone resembling the confusion of the wounded, that had probably lost concious when hit, and now he finds himself in a pleasent environment. This is just for the first stanza because, in the second, the wounded soldier starts to feel pain and remember the terrible shock of the battle and of beig hit. This shock actually leaves him with nothing to say (L.14-15) and contrasting sensations (L.13).