Christina Rossetti: Poems

(Macmillan's Magazine, May 1868.)

Hope new born one pleasant morn

Died at even;

Hope dead lives nevermore.

No, not in heaven.

If his shroud were but a cloud

To weep itself away;

Or were he buried underground

To sprout some day!

But dead and gone is dead and gone

Vainly wept upon. 10

Nought we place above his face

To mark the spot,

But it shows a barren place

In our lot.

Hope has birth no more on earth

Morn or even;

Hope dead lives nevermore,

No, not in heaven.