REGRET

“It might have been,” is the sad refrain That forever haunts my weary brain, Till heart and soul grow weak with pain. “It might have been,” are the words I hear In the curlew’s cry from the lonely mere; In the whisper of leaves when woods are sere. “It might have been,” says the sea’s long moan, As if a breaking heart of its own Wailed out in that strange low undertone. “It might have been.” Ah, the hungry cry As the leaden years crawl slowly by! It will ring through my life till I die, I die.