In the middle of the night

Mother’s spirit came and spoke to me,

   Looking weariful and white—

As ’twere untimely news she broke to me.

   “O my daughter, joyed are you

To own the weetless child you mother there;

   ‘Men may search the wide world through,’

You think, ‘nor find so fair another there!’

   “Dear, this midnight time unwombs

Thousands just as rare and beautiful;

   Thousands whom High Heaven foredooms

To be as bright, as good, as dutiful.

   “Source of ecstatic hopes and fears

And innocent maternal vanity,

   Your fond exploit but shapes for tears

New thoroughfares in sad humanity.

   “Yet as you dream, so dreamt I

When Life stretched forth its morning ray to me;

   Other views for by and by!” . . .

Such strange things did mother say to me.