REGRET AND REMORSE

By Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Regret with streaming eyes doth seem alway

A maiden widowed on her wedding day.

While dark Remorse, with eyes too sad for tears,

A crushed, desponding Magdalene appears.

One, with a hungering heart unsatisfied,

Mourns for imagined joys that were denied.

The other, pierced by recollected sin,

Broods o'er the scars of pleasures that have been.