CONJECTURE

If there were in my kalendar

No Emma, Florence, Mary,

What would be my existence now -

A hermit's?— wanderer's weary? -

How should I live, and how

Near would be death, or far?

Could it have been that other eyes

Might have uplit my highway?

That fond, sad, retrospective sight

Would catch from this dim byway

Prized figures different quite

From those that now arise?

With how strange aspect would there creep

The dawn, the night, the daytime,

If memory were not what it is

In song-time, toil, or pray-time. -

O were it else than this,

I'd pass to pulseless sleep!