Carol and Cadence :: :: University of Virginia Library

They lapse and look not back,
Our hours of gold and grey;
Thought ceases from their track:
But that which might one day
Have been for us, alack!
We cannot cast away.

Pain, passion, fear and fret
Flit from us on Time's wings;
We owe the Past no debt
Of glad rememberings:
But thought may not forget
The unaccomplished things.

The occasions cast aside,
The chances met and missed,
Hopes slain of sloth or pride,
The tale of Had-we-wist,
These all with us abide
And fret us at their list.

The loves we might have had,
If eyes had not been blind,
The dark hours, that might glad

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Have been, had sense inclined,
How sad it is, how sad
To call these all to mind!

There wanted but a word
Between my love and me,
There wanted but a bird
On yonder leafless tree,
And Life might yet have stirred
With hope and ecstasy.

A windwaft in the air,
A touch of hand and hand,
Of Winter's desert bare
Had made a summer land;
Foul might have turned to Fair
And Life been bright and bland.

A glint of summer-sheen
Upon Thought's frozen rill,
And Life with flower and green
Had blossomed at Love's will.
Ah me, the Might-have-been,
How hard it is to kill!