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When flowers were dead, and grass was green
Upon my mother’s grave,–that mother
Whom to outlive, and cheer, and make 340
My wan eyes glitter for her sake,
Was my vowed task, the single care
Which once gave life to my despair,–
When she was a thing that did not stir
And the crawling worms were cradling her 345
To a sleep more deep and so more sweet
Than a baby’s rocked on its nurse’s knee,
I lived: a living pulse then beat
Beneath my heart that awakened me.
What was this pulse so warm and free? 350
Alas! I knew it could not be
My own dull blood: ’twas like a thought
Of liquid love, that spread and wrought
Under my bosom and in my brain,
And crept with the blood through every vein; 355
And hour by hour, day after day,
The wonder could not charm away,
But laid in sleep, my wakeful pain,
Until I knew it was a child,
And then I wept. For long, long years 360
These frozen eyes had shed no tears:
But now–’twas the season fair and mild
When April has wept itself to May:
I sate through the sweet sunny day
By my window bowered round with leaves, 365
And down my cheeks the quick tears fell
Like twinkling rain-drops from the eaves,
When warm spring showers are passing o’er.
O Helen, none can ever tell
The joy it was to weep once more! 370

I wept to think how hard it were
To kill my babe, and take from it
The sense of light, and the warm air,
And my own fond and tender care,
And love and smiles; ere I knew yet 375
That these for it might, as for me,
Be the masks of a grinning mockery.
And haply, I would dream, ’twere sweet
To feed it from my faded breast,
Or mark my own heart’s restless beat 380
Rock it to its untroubled rest,
And watch the growing soul beneath
Dawn in faint smiles; and hear its breath,
Half interrupted by calm sighs,
And search the depth of its fair eyes 385
For long departed memories!
And so I lived till that sweet load
Was lightened. Darkly forward flowed
The stream of years, and on it bore
Two shapes of gladness to my sight; 390
Two other babes, delightful more
In my lost soul’s abandoned night,
Than their own country ships may be
Sailing towards wrecked mariners,
Who cling to the rock of a wintry sea. 395
For each, as it came, brought soothing tears;
And a loosening warmth, as each one lay
Sucking the sullen milk away
About my frozen heart, did play,
And weaned it, oh how painfully– 400
As they themselves were weaned each one
From that sweet food,–even from the thirst
Of death, and nothingness, and rest,
Strange inmate of a living breast!
Which all that I had undergone 405
Of grief and shame, since she, who first
The gates of that dark refuge closed,
Came to my sight, and almost burst
The seal of that Lethean spring;
But these fair shadows interposed: 410
For all delights are shadows now!
And from my brain to my dull brow
The heavy tears gather and flow:
I cannot speak: Oh, let me weep!