It might have been so different a year
To what _has_ been; the summer's guileless play
Not all a jest, comes back to me to-day
In added sweetness, and provokes a tear.
Strange pictures rise, pass on, and disappear.
Drawn from your tender words of yesterday
When, looking in my eyes in the old way
You told me of your life, how passing dear
It might have been.

Useless to dream, more useless to regret!
We might have lived and loved, nor lost the glow
Of Love's first sweet intensity;--to let
These foolish fancies die I strive,--and yet
I still must count it happiness to know
It might have been.