Dancing Dust
	Poems by Mollie Caird (1922-2000)
	And frustrate hope severer than despair
Home Alphabetic index of poems Thematic index of poems Biography Gallery Contact and links	Lament for this then, when there is Instead of fears And pain heart-piercing, nothing but A poor blank without tears. For now the round moon of my hope is waned To a bright silver thread, that curving stays About the phantom disc of what she was In former days. They tell me she will wax again soon, In a short space. It may be so — But mine will be A different moon, And in another place.   Green Book No. 7   The title of this poem is the final line of William Cowper's 'Hope, like the short-liv'd ray' of which the preceding line is "Absence from whom we love is worse than death". March, 1943