Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

The Only Child

Beatrice Ravenel

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.