Classic Poem

I cannot but believe, though you were dead,
Lying stone-still, and I came in and said
Having been out perhaps in mud and rain:
‘O dear, O look, I have torn my skirt again,’
That you would rise with the old simple ease,
And say, ‘Yes, child’, and come to me. And there
In your white crackling apron, on your knees
With your quick hands, rough with the washing-up
Of every silver spoon and cherished cup,
And bending head, coiled with the happy hair
Your own child should have pulled for you (but no,
Your child who might have been, you did not bear,
Because the endless riches of your care
Were all for us) you would mend and heal my tear—
Mend, touch and heal; and stitching all the while,
Your cottons on the floor, look up and show
The sudden light perpetual of your smile—
Then, with your darning finished, being dead
Go back and lie, like stone, upon your bed.