marsh light

Noun

marsh light (plural marsh lights)

1. A will o' the wisp.
2. (figuratively) A delusion, a false hope.
   • "Thus, even thus, have I lived for full two thousand years - for some six and sixty generations, as ye reckon time - in a Hell, as thou callest it - tormented by the memory of a crime, tortured day and night with an unfulfilled desire - without companionship, without comfort, without death, and led...1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC