What might have been, what might have been!

Is there a sadder word than this?

Are any serpent’s teeth more keen

Than memories of what we miss?

The wreaths we might have worn, if but

Our feet had found the fields of May,

Instead of jolting down the rut

Of traffic on life’s hard high-way!

The love we might have known, if we

Had turned this way instead of that;

The lips we might have kissed, which he

For whom they parted, pouted at!

The joys we might, when blood was young,

Have garnered in a goodly sheaf;

The summer songs we might have sung,

While still our life was but in leaf!

What might have been, what might have been!

Sad thought, when age before us lowers,

And dark is the December scene,

And fallen even autumn’s flowers!