Poems (Rossetti, 1901)/Dead Hope

by Christina Georgina Rossetti

DEAD HOPE.

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.

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.