The Only Child

You are not one child only,

Little one, daughter my dear-

Hundreds of shadowy children

Follow you everywhere.

Babies in twilighted corners

Play with your outgrown things;

They whisper forgotten stories,

They dance in gossamer rings.

Hundreds of outgrown children

Look from your candid eyes;

Butterfly, ceaselessly living

In a swarming of butterflies.

You race through the garden doorway,

And swift, like a silvery band,

The cobweb of children is after you . . .

But the last one holds my hand.