So often in the mid of night
 I wake me in my bed
With utter panic of affright
 To find my feet are dead;
And pace the floor to easy my pain
 And make them live again.

The folks at home are so discreet;
 They see me walk and walk
To keep the blood-flow in my feet,
 And though they never talk
I've heard them whisper: 'Mother may
 Have them cut off some day.'

Cut off my feet! I'd rather die . . .
 And yet the years of pain,
When in the darkness I will lie
 And pray to God in vain,
Thinking in agony: Oh why
Can doctors not annul our breath
 In honourable death?