LESSONS

from

THE LIFE OF

Florence Nightingale

By CHARLOTTE A. AIKENS

Author of “Hospital Training School Methods and the Head Nurse,” “Primary Studies for Nurses,” “Clinical Studies for Nurses,” “Studies in Ethics for Nurses,” etc. Joint Author of Hospital Management. Editor “The Trained Nurse and Hospital Review.”

Lakeside Publishing Company
38-40 West 32nd St.
New York.

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
Born in Florence, Italy, May 12th, 1820;
died in London August 13th, 1910

SANTA FILOMENA

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Whene’er a noble deed is wrought

Whene’er is spoke a noble thought

Our hearts, in glad surprise,

To higher levels rise.

The tidal wave of deeper souls

Into our inmost being rolls

And lifts us unawares

Out of all meaner cares.

Honor to those whose words or deeds

Thus help us in our daily needs.

And by their overflow

Raise us from what is low!

Thus thought I, as by night I read

Of the great army of the dead,

The trenches cold and damp,

The starved and frozen camp.

The wounded from the battle-plain

In dreary hospitals of pain,

The cheerless corridors,

The cold and stony floors.

Lo! in that house of misery

A lady with a lamp I see

Pass through the glimmering gloom,

And flit from room to room.

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 portals of the past.

A Lady with a Lamp shall stand

In the great history of the land

A noble 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 bore.