Poems

<h2><SPAN name="RONDEAU_IT_MIGHT_HAVE_BEEN" id="RONDEAU_IT_MIGHT_HAVE_BEEN"></SPAN>RONDEAU.&mdash;IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.</h2> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> <span class="i0"><span class="dropcap">I</span>T might have been so different a year<br/></span> <span class="i2a">To what <i>has</i> been; the summer's guileless play<br/></span> <span class="i2">Not all a jest, comes back to me to-day<br/></span> <span class="i0">In added sweetness, and provokes a tear.<br/></span> <span class="i0">Strange pictures rise, pass on, and disappear.<br/></span> <span class="i2">Drawn from your tender words of yesterday<br/></span> <span class="i2">When, looking in my eyes in the old way<br/></span> <span class="i0">You told me of your life, how passing dear<br/></span> <span class="i8">It might have been.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Useless to dream, more useless to regret!<br/></span> <span class="i2">We might have lived and loved, nor lost the glow<br/></span> <span class="i0">Of Love's first sweet intensity;&mdash;to let<br/></span> <span class="i0">These foolish fancies die I strive,&mdash;and yet<br/></span> <span class="i2">I still must count it happiness to know<br/></span> <span class="i8">It might have been.<br/></span></div> </div> <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />