The Dead Hope

The mother who has lost her only child.
Thinking of all it should have been to her.
What time strange voices in the breezes stir,
Sits in the Autumn twilight, gray and wild.
Remembering how the dead lips spoke and smiled.
And as she sits, her child full grown and fair,
Large eyed, with glory of up-gathered hair,
Comes in a vision exquisitely mild.

So, sometimes, as in dreams, I seem to see
That joy arisen to full height — that life,
That hope which died in shining infancy.
The mother yet may be a fruitful wife
And bear fresh children; but for me there spring i
No second hope from out the womb of things.