The heavy tax made upon my physical powers by exposure to the night air had caused a severe haemorrhage.  The excellent physician who took charge of my case said positively that my lungs were sound, and the attack was due to the bursting of a blood-vessel.  I was to avoid sitting upright in bed, to receive no visitors, and have ice applied.  I believed myself destined to an early death, but the departure from life caused me no fear; nay, I felt so weary that I desired nothing but eternal sleep.  Only I wanted to see my mother again.

Then let my end come!

I was in the mood to write, and either the day after the haemorrhage or the next one I composed the following verses: 

          A field of poppies swaying to and fro,
          Their blossoms scarlet as fresh blood,
          I see, While o’er me, radiant in the noontide glow,
          The sky, blue as corn-flowers, arches free.

          Low music echoes through the breezes warm;
          The violet lends the poppy her sweet breath;
          The song of nightingales is heard, a swarm
          Of butterflies flit hov’ring o’er the heath.

          While thus I lie, wrapped in a morning dream,
          Half waking, half asleep, ’mid poppies red,
          A fresh breeze cools my burning cheeks; a gleam
          Of light shines in the East.  Hath the night sped?

          Then upward from an opening bud hath flown
          A poppy leaf toward the azure sky,
          But close beside it, from a flower full-blown,
          The scattered petals on the brown earth lie.

          The leaflet flutters, a fair sight to view,
          By the fresh matin breezes heavenward borne,
          The faded poppy falls, the fields anew
          To fertilize, which grateful thanks return.

          Starting from slumber round my room I gaze
          My hand of my own life-blood bears the stain;
          I am the poppy-leaf, with the first rays
          Of morning snatched away from earth’s domain.

          Not mine the fate the world’s dark ways to wend,
          And perish, wearied, at the goal of life;
          Still glad and blooming, I leave every friend;
          The game is lost—­but with what joys ’twas rife!

I cannot express how these verses relieved my heart; and when on the third day I again felt comparatively well I tried to believe that I should soon recover, enjoy the pleasures of corps life, though with some caution, and devote myself seriously to the study of jurisprudence under Pernice’s direction.

The physician gave his permission for a speedy return, but his assurance that there was no immediate danger if I was careful did not afford me unmixed pleasure.  For my mother’s sake and my own I desired to live, but the rules he prescribed before my departure were so contradictory to my nature that they seemed unbearably cruel.  They restricted every movement.  He feared the haemorrhage far less than the tender feeling in the soles of my feet and other small symptoms of the commencement of a chronic disease.