A person who has led a happy, sheltered life admits to a strange kind of waiting. She expects grief to arrive at any moment, like an inevitable visitor she has read about but never met. The lines convey a quiet, uneasy suspense: she pictures sorrow’s footsteps, tears falling on her hearth, endless lonely hours. There’s no contentment in her present joy, because she feels it is incomplete or false without having been tested by pain. She almost longs for the first real heartbreak, because the dread of its arrival is a burden of its own. The questions at the end reveal her real worry—that when sorrow finally does come, it will distort everything, making the once-happy years feel wasted and her vision too tired to see light. The mood is hushed, a little haunted, as if every bright morning is cast with a faint, persistent shadow.
The Morning Shadow — Summary
I who have never known sorrow Wait for it morning and evening; For the footstep of grief on my threshold, The drip of tears on my hearthstone, The pitiless hours of lonely, uncomforted woe. Never a life without sorrow! But, oh, when will mine be upon me? When will the years seem long That now slip happily by me? The light of the skies be dimmed To eyes that are weary with weeping?