Classic Poem

There is a widowhood of doubt, there is a deeper hurt than death—
A life of always looking out, of listening with halted breath:
A sudden likeness in the street, a sound familiar in the tread
Of some one passing—so to meet some daily vision of the dead.

The Missing, dead yet living, they who live no more, and never died:
How these their widows day by day must bear a grief unsatisfied!
Not theirs a great Physician's balm, not theirs to linger by a cross,
Not theirs the years of sorrow's calm, the blessed certitude of loss.

Still they must wonder if the wood or waters claimed him, if the tree
It was that made their widowhood—or if unwidowed they may be.
So many go the woodland trail; the curtains close about them; then
There comes a rumor or a tale; but they, they come not forth again.

Then the long widowhood of doubt: Perhaps to-night he will return;
From heart and window shining out the woman's sainted candles burn—
Each day a disappointment, each new hour a hope, a hope to dim,
A wish that constant ray would reach around the world in search of him.

Ah, weedless widows, widowed, wed to years of such uncertainty,
Wan widows of the living dead, earth's saddest mourners, such are ye.
If they be dead your candles seek, God give you proof and comfort, too;
But, if they live and do not speak, God punish them and pity you.