THE GIRLS WE MIGHT HAVE WED.

Come, brothers, let us sing a dirge,—

A dirge for myriad chances dead;

In grief your mournful accents merge:

Sing, sing the girls we might have wed!

Sweet lips were those we never pressed

In love that never lost the dew

In sunlight of a love confessed,—

Kind were the girls we never knew!

Sing low, sing low, while in the glow

Of fancy's hour those forms we trace,

Hovering around the years that go;

Those years our lives can ne'er replace!

Sweet lips are those that never turn

A cruel word; dear eyes that lead

The heart on in a blithe concern;

White hand of her we did not wed;

Fair hair or dark, that falls along

A form that never shrinks with time;

Bright image of a realm of song,

Standing beside our years of prime;—

When you shall go, then may we know

The heart is dead, the man is old.

Life can no other charm bestow

When girls we might have loved turn cold!