A NIGHTINGALE SANG: Texts
WELCOME ALL
Welcome all, Welcome all
Welcome sorrow, Welcome joy
Welcome shadows, Welcome light
Welcome all opposites,
Pale and bright
Welcome the weeping clouds
Welcome Fever and fret, the fair and the foul
The wakeful anguish of the soul.
The last sad gray hairs
In the temple of delight
Veiled melancholy has her Sovran shrine
Keats *
*Mash-up of Ode To a Nightingale, Ode To Melancholy and Welcome joy, and Welcome Sorrow
WE LIVE TOGETHER
We live together: let us live for each other’s comfort. We are all working together: grasp the
idea of this as a larger work than our own little pet hobbies, which are narrow, our own little
personal wishes, feelings, piques, or tempers. This is not individual work. To love that is to
help one another, to strive together to act together, to work for the same end………
Florence Nightingale
ANNA
My name is Anna
And I have a daughter
Her name is Emma
And she is so beautiful
But she cannot talk to me
My name is Anna
And I have a husband
His name is Jeffrey
He is so depressed
I wish he would talk to me
My name is Anna
And I am a carer
My work is demanding
Unpaid and underrated
Why does this happen to me?
Life is so very hard
When you are a carer
No time for myself
For friends or for hobbies
I just feel like a machine
Life is so lonely
When you are a carer
No one understands
My problems and sorrow
I just have to cope on my own
Life is better when I meet other carers
Problems are smaller when you share
Anna Chan
IN TENEBRIS
My mind is absorbed with the suffering of man, it besets me before and behind, a
very one-sided view but I can hardly see anything else and all that the poets sing of
the glories of this world seems to me untrue. All the people I see are eaten up with
care of poverty or disease.
Florence Nightingale
Et lux in tenebris lucet et tenebrae eam non conprehenderunt.
(And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.)
St. John 1:5
KIM
Us poor wretches wishing we could be
Wishing we could be on good terms with ourselves,
Us poor wretches wishing we could have
Wishing we could have ourselves a better life.
The stuffed and the hollow men all, come in.
I just bum another fag
And hang around the throng
Going hopelessly wrong
Us poor wretches wishing we could be
Wishing we could be on good terms with ourselves,
The stuffed and the hollow men all, come congregating as another Eleanor Rigby is
quietly done away with……..HELP!
Kim Terry Ling
MARY
I want to tell you about Adam
He was very troubled, he was just 19
I want to tell you about time
We stood outside his door
We got a call from his doctor
He was living in a pokey room – in ‘Halls’
We knocked – he wouldn’t answer
Wouldn’t say anything – wouldn’t let us in.
Day after day, so we waited and we waited
We tried to reassure him, returning day after day –
Trying different approaches
And then Adam opened the door
Chaos – but he was just 19, just a boy.
Sitting on the bed
Wouldn’t look at us, wouldn’t talk
Then I see CD’s lots and lots of CD’s.
I gave him some of my music
I gave him a sad song
And he smiled
Adam smiled
And I smiled because Adam smiled
Mary O Toole
CLAIRE
Another young patient is wildly manic.
She chants, sings, leaps, runs for her life along the narrow corridors,
Bangs on the glass – bangs on doors,
Stops momentarily to trace the walls with her fingers,
Then lunges across the lounge,
Jumping off and on seats,
Talking and talking with no spaces between the words,
Grabbing at others, slapping them.
She crumples up, crying and holding onto whoever is there.
Sometimes it hurts her because she struggles.
I want her to stay still – stay still
She defecate, she urinates in the corner of her room.
I would like to be able to look after her in the woods so she can run about without
hurting herself or anyone else
And can squat in the bushes if she wished.
My head spins. I replay conversations
I wish I could shed it instantly and just be with my baby and rock him to sleep.
My prayer is that I never leave my humanity at the door when I go onto the ward.
Claire Lapworth
TOM
Two people in a room
Just two people talking
One tells a story
One listens
A story about problems and mistakes, of hope,
of family, of being let down.
On the surface it’s just their story
But underneath it’s your story too
And all the diagrams with arrows (both curvy and straight)
The models, the boxes with words in, the PowerPoint slides,
The mouse-clicks and keystrokes and all approximations
The handover box of sections and codes, the forms
And it’s still just two people in a room
Two people talking – And it’s your story too.
And Emily says:
Much madness is divinest sense –
Much sense – the starkest madness
And you go into the room, you get the handover for the room and the diagnosis, the
assessment, the section 136, the breached CTO, gender, ethnicity, the legal status, the
section 17, the “well known to services”, the risk screen all melt away, all fade, all
recede. And it’s your story too
Tom Alexander
Much madness is divinest sense
Much Sense – the starkest Madness –
‘Tis the Majority
In this, as All, prevail
Assent – and you are sane
Demur – you’re dangerous Emily Dickinson
BLESS ALL
Bless all the nurses, all those everywhere.
Bless all the midwives, all who offer care.
Bless all mothers of sick children – all.
Bless all sons of dying fathers – all.
Bless all those sick of bone,
Blood, skin and things unknown,
Of mind, of soul. Bless all.
Bless Florence Nightingale, bless all.
Bless all her “Fellow searchers”, all.
OUT OF SUFFERING
Out of suffering may come the cure.
Give us back our suffering,
We cry to Heaven in our hearts –
Suffering rather than indifference.
Florence Nightingale
KATHY
My name is Kathleen
And I’m from Dublin.
I have a brother
He’s eleven years younger.
The world became darker as my addiction took over.
I saw no escape but the final curtain.
For years I struggled.
At times the sun shone.
Support and focus go hand in hand,
The hurdles they are many.
But with time and perseverance
And most of all with faith I found
I was able to belong again to a world I had rejected.
Kathy Kennedy
NICKY
Tabby is more than life to me
She is gold and bold, and happy to see
I watch her daily, she gets fed too.
She plays in the bushes and runs in the grass
I’ll never giver her up, as long as she loves me.
Tabby has me in a regular routine.
I feed her three times
Three times a day.
I pick her up and cuddle her; I cuddle her for hours
Touching her gives me such a lovely sensation.
She is soft and fluffy.
With this I get very emotional and sometimes
come close to tears.
Nicky Godfrey
DEEPER, WIDER
I believe that we have relations to, to each other, each other, that are deeper, wider
and more enduring than the ties we see, we see.
I believe that in another world we shall recognize those who have made us suffer
here as our teachers and thank them
They remain that our narrow personal love may grow into charity divine.
They remain that our old love may build itself a lasting monument in every good
word and work to our life’s end,
Florence Nightingale
FLOWERS ARE BEAUTIFUL
Flowers are beautiful, they grow outside
They innocently sway
Touch. Smell. Colour
They’re kissed by the sun
Dancing in the warmth of love
But at night the flowers fade to black and White
Fade to black
And there, kissed by the moon
You meet your shadow, your own shadow.
(Own shadow, own shadow, own shadow)
Shadows are beautiful, they grow in light
They innocently sway, they follow and they sway
No touch, smell, colour
They’re kissed by the sun
Dancing in the warmth of love
(Own shadow, own shadow, own shadow)
Mind and Soul Choir
SMALL SELVES
“Little children, love one another”.
Remember we are not so many small selves, but members of a community.
Florence Nightingale
MARIA
My name is Maria
And I come from Erith
I live with my mum
And our dog called mason
I had a breakdown (due to a marriage breakdown)
I went into Woodlands where I met Kathy.
The lovely Kathy.
We have remained friends and have been on a
Journey together to being well and happy
The dark days became fewer
And the light days came along.
With the help of friends and family
I knew that I could carry on.
I can tell when I am getting ill
And do something about it
Before it gets too bad.
Maria Marcanik
john browne 