RONDEAU.— IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.

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.