I was so pleased with myself after writing this poem that I ran downstairs. My husband was assisting the furnace cleaning person. I interrupted their task and stood at the top of the basement stairs reciting the poem unable to see either of them. I was surprisingly pleased when I heard the furnace guy laugh.

The Ghost of the Hopeless Hopechest
In a quiet room, in a quiet house abides a hopeless hope chest,
where a quiet lady, still quietly resides, a lady that needed rest.
Alas, the quiescent irony, the inactive lock would not release,
She could not wake her latent company, so found no rest, no peace.
If only in the cumbrous dark, in the cold, the lock she could mend
if only she would be so bold, the rusty hinges she might bend.
To find quiet, restful, repose, a quilt to cover her in her bed.
In the slumbrous house, untroubled by guilt, the lady froze dead.
In the quiet, in the still, I still hear her whisper, her soundless cry,
She left her quilts to us, in her will, but why, oh why did I deny,
To tell her before she set off to bed, the quilt was in the bureau drawer
If she was not still dead, I would complain to hear her static snore.

Sarah B. Royal’s The Ghost of the Hopeless Hopechest, composed using a Table of Contents constraint from a 1925 poetry anthology, is a hauntingly humorous meditation on memory, regret, and the quiet. The poem’s title alone evokes a sense of paradox: a hope chest, traditionally a vessel of dreams and dowries, rendered “hopeless”—its promise unfulfilled, its contents untouched. Through the constraint of repurposed titles, Royal crafts a narrative that is both ghost story, gothic and gently comic, revealing how constraint can deepen emotional resonance rather than limit it.

The poem opens in a hush: “In a quiet room, in a quiet house…” This repetition of “quiet” sets the tone for a world suspended in stillness, where time has slowed to a crawl and memory lingers like dust on old furniture. The hope chest becomes a central symbol—locked, inert, and ironically inaccessible. The woman who “needed rest” cannot find it, not because of external chaos, but because of an internal, unresolved restraint. The lock that “would not release” becomes a metaphor for emotional repression, for the things we keep locked away until it’s too late.

Royal’s use of language is deliberate and evocative. Words like quiescent, cumbrous, and slumbrous lend the poem a vintage, almost Victorian texture, aligning beautifully with the 1925 source material. The poem’s constraint—drawing from a curated list of titles—infuses it with a sense of literary inheritance. These are repurposed to tell a modern tale of emotional paralysis and missed connection.

At the heart of the poem is a quiet tragedy: the woman dies in her sleep, to polite to disturb her guests, never knowing that the comfort she longed for—a quilt—was within reach all along, tucked away in a bureau drawer. The speaker’s regret is palpable: “If only she would be so bold…” and later, “why, oh why did I deny / To tell her…” These lines capture the aching simplicity of human error—whether out oversight, distraction, or the assumption that there will always be more time.

Yet, in true Royal fashion, the poem does not end in despair. The final lines introduce a note of dark humor: “If she was not still dead, I would complain to hear her static snore.” This unexpected turn—delivered with a wink—undercuts the solemnity with levity. It’s a reminder that even in mourning, there is room for laughter, for absurdity, for the strange comfort of ghosts who snore.

This interplay between grief and wit, between stillness and surprise, is what makes The Ghost of the Hopeless Hopechest so compelling. It is a poem about what we leave behind—quilts, regrets, snores—and how those remnants continue to speak.

The poem is not just about a ghost in a house—it is about the ghosts we carry, the ones we inherit, and the ones we become. It is about the quiet rooms inside us, the locked chests we never open, and the quilts of comfort we forget to offer until it’s too late. And yet, through poetry, through laughter, through the act of writing and sharing, we find a way to unlock them—if only for a moment.