Over the Empty Cradle (Two Pictures of the Mother-Love)

The mother bends over a cradle-bed,
    Empty and cold is the little nest;
A deep dint marks where the sunny head
    And the half-shut, dimpled flat were pressed.

The eyes down-looking have spent their tears,
    They are sadder than, weeping; unmoved and stark
They stare on vacantly, through the void years
    Of a future eclipsed, all hollow and dark;

O, is there a gulf that is blacker than this!
    Was ever a midnight more sombre and deep
Than the empty cradle’s unfathomed abyss?
    Than the gloom over eyes too sad to weep?

Down, down she gazes, forever down
    The narrow rift that has whelmed her all;
She feels the weight of an Infinite Frown,
    The rush of her torn heart’s endless fall!

But stronger than death is, and stronger than woe,
    Is the mother-love in its agony drear;
No downward gazing can pierce below
    The central core of our little sphere.

Beyond that centre is up for aye;
    There is no down from that burning core;
At our deepest midnight starts the day,
    Thence moving is rising forever more!

Thanks to the love that can never die,
    And thanks to the weakness of wearied flesh,
From its woe’s black centre the heart drifts by,
    And again mounts slowly to life, dewy-fresh.

The Imperious challenge of lowliest care,
    And the love that will brood o’er the vacant place,
Can lure the soul from its dull despair,
    And kindle the smile of a vanished face.

Ha, Mother! a light breaks in at last
    Through the soundless charm, from far beyond
Our sphere’s dark centre, in heavens too vast 
    For thy soul, in seeing it, to despond.

Sheer down through the empty cradle’s chasm,
    Till down is up to the infinite,
Thy glance has pierced, and a sudden spasm
    Attests the birth of thy purer light.

The rounded form and the rosy face
    That pressed the pillow, no more are there;
But clothed in ever-expanding grace
    Are all as near in the luminous air!

In immortal love is immortal faith; 
    The blessing lost is a fuller bliss;
By his scorpion sting self-slain is Death,
    And Here and Hereafter are wed with a kiss!